New York Detective Helped Convict the Innocent

http://www.salon.com/2013/06/22/retired_nyc_homicide_detective_investigated_for_misconduct_wrongful_convictions_partner/

This officer’s work apparently involved railroading the innocent with the full cooperation of a number of prosecutors in more than fifty cases.
I hope you have the opportunity to work in a prosecutor’s office. I believe in justice but prosecutorial discretion is too broad and the desire not for justice but for a good “kill” ratio often outranks justice as a priority in some of these offices.
Here is an important quote from the article:

“The prosecutor’s duty to the truth arises from several sources,” Gershman wrote. “The most important source is the prosecutor’s role as a minister of justice. In this role, the prosecutor has the overriding responsibility not simply to convict the guilty but to protect the innocent. The duty to truth also derives from the prosecutor’s constitutional obligation not to use false evidence or to suppress material evidence favorable to the defendant. The duty to truth also arises from various ethical strictures that require prosecutors to have confidence in the truth of the evidence before bringing or maintaining criminal charges. The duty is found as well in the prosecutor’s domination of the criminal justice system and his virtual monopoly of the fact-finding process.”

This quote parallels my views on the subject. Justice is not equal to God but stands high in its importance to morality and a life worth living.

Please read the full article.

James Pilant

From around the web:

From the web site, TOT Private Consulting –

http://privateinvesigations.blogspot.com/2013/03/nypd-detective-who-got-innocent-man.html

The NYPD detective whose corner-cutting investigative work, combined with a community’s blood lust for quick justice, put an apparently innocent man in prison for 23 years insists he’s being scapegoated by the very district attorney who pushed for the conviction.

“They threw me under the bus,” Louis Scarcella told The Post yesterday after DA Charles Hynes indicated he’d asked a judge to vacate David Ranta’s conviction, more than two decades after Ranta was found guilty of murdering a prominent rabbi in Williamsburg.

“I was appalled when I got the news,” the retired cop said outside his Staten Island home. “I stand by the confession 100 percent. I never framed anyone in my life. You have to be a low devil to frame someone. I sleep well at night.”

While Scarcella was sleeping, Ranta, 58, was languishing in a Buffalo prison, convicted of the February 1990 murder of Rabbi Chaskel Werzberger after a botched jewelry heist in the Orthodox Jewish community.

From the web site, General Strike –

http://generalstrikeusa.wordpress.com/2013/03/23/david-ranta-convicted-more-than-20-years-ago-for-a-murder-he-didnt-commit-is-a-free-man-after-a-re-examination-of-his-case/

An ‘overwhelmed’ David Ranta left prison with a small bag of belongings and family members ecstatic to see him outside of his cell. His conviction began to fall apart when it was revealed that case detectives used questionable tactics in his case, including coaching witnesses.

An innocent man was sprung from prison Thursday — more than 20 years after he was wrongfully convicted of killing a beloved Brooklyn rabbi.

David Ranta, 58, could barely contain his excitement, smiling broadly at relatives who hadn’t seen him as a free man since his 1991 conviction. Ranta was found guilty of shooting Rabbi Chaskel Werzberger in a botched jewelry heist in Williamsburg.

The conviction crumbled after a year-long investigation revealed case detectives coached witnesses, did not keep notes and gave incentives to felons who provided information.

And from the web site, From the Trenches –

http://www.fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/who-protects-new-yorkers-from-the-nypd/44295

Heyward is not alone in his suspicion of foul play in Hynes executions of justice. The DA has recently come under great scrutiny for spending years refusing to review convictions that he and his predecessor obtained through working with a homicide detective of such dubious repute. Last week, the Hynes office was forced to reopen 50 cases in which NYPD Detective Louis Scarcella was involved, after the Times uncovered that he obtained false confessions, lied, and relied on testimony from a single, crack-addicted prostitute to obtain a number of convictions. While families of those convicted through Scarlla’s police plan to start bird-dogging Hynes, others, like Heyward, have vowed to win justice for those they will never see again.

“It doesn’t matter how long I have to be out here fighting and exposing the reality of what happened. I’m going to keep at it,” said Heyward who believes there is a clear conflict of interest between New York City’s DAs and the NYPD since they are both on the same side of the law. “When cops are involved, it’s like district attorneys forget how to prosecute.”

“I’m overwhelmed,” Ranta said outside a courtroom in downtown Brooklyn, carrying a purple laundry bag with all his belongings. “Right now, I feel like I’m underwater, swimming.”