June 26, 2024 • 33 mins
Steve and Dax are joined by journalist Ted Hamm who examines the conduct of the Assistant District Attorneys who worked on Louis Scarcella's wrongful convictions.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, Steve Fishman here, creator of The Burden as well
as the number one true crime podcast My Friend The
Serial Killer. For those of you who liked The Burden,
I have good news. Season two starts August seventh. It's
a series called The Burden Empire on Blood and it's
the director's cut of the true crime classic Empire on Blood,
(00:22):
which reached number one on the charts when it debuted
half a dozen years ago. Then the fat cat funders
abandon it. I wrangled it back and now I'm thrilled
to share this story of a man who fought the
law for two decades, fought against the Bronx's top homicide
prosecutor and a detective sometimes known as the Louis Scarcela
(00:44):
of the Bronx. It's all coming to you August seventh,
wherever you get your podcasts. Hey listeners, I'm Steve Fishman
and I'm Dax's Devlin Ross. Welcome to another fantastic bonus episode.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Of the Burden.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Before we start, remember that subscribers get more exclusive and
add free bonus content.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
It's easy to subscribe. Just go to the show page
and Apple Podcasts. Say you know Dax Er Steve for
the special exclusive price of two ninety.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Nine a month Dax. You can sell me anything. Today's
bonus is a little bit different than the ones we
usually do. Today we want to make a case. We
want to make a case for an investigation. And first
we're going to make our case to you and our listeners.
We hope by the end you'll agree something needs to
(01:43):
be done. By the way, if you have any thoughts
on this, or maybe you have some information, call us
one eight three three eight Burden.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
So let's start with what we know. Luis Scarcela is
now regarded as a disgrace detective, the most notorious ex
detective in New York. Twenty one cases Louis helped investigate
have been overturned.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Today we're going to focus on the assistant District Attorneys,
the eightas in the Brooklyn District Attorney's office. These are
the lawyers who prosecuted those twenty one wrongful convictions. They
had the power, the authority, the law degrees, but when
it comes to wrongful convictions, they have often skated away free.
(02:35):
For one thing. By law, the DA has immunity. This
means someone who's been wrongfully convicted cannot sue the DA,
he can sue the cops and Louis cases have cost
the taxpayer over one hundred million dollars. But remember, every
wrongful conviction had an ADA presiding over it. The current
(02:58):
DA's conviction review it has overturned lots of Scarcella's cases,
and we need to give current DA Eric Gonzalez credit.
He has made writing wrongful convictions a cause. Still even today,
the reports overturning Scarcella cases often blame him by name.
His flawed work explained in detail. But the prosecutors, the
(03:22):
adas who supposedly vetted his investigations, endorsed his testimony, tried
the cases, put witnesses on the stand, told the jury
what to believe. They get anonymity for the most part,
like you know, it's a professional courtesy.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
And yet one of Scarcella's eightya's had three convictions overturned
another four. Any consequences to their career, Steve.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Yeah, they rose in the ranks, all right, but let's
not get ahead of ourselves.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
To lead the research, we tapped to distinguish Brooklyn based
journalist named Ted ham.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
So, Ted, can you introduce yourself?
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Sure? My name is Theodore Ham. I prefer to go
by Ted and I I am the chair of journalism
at Saint Joseph's University in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, and I've
written extensively about Scarcella cases for The Independent India with
a Y.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Ted's nickname is the Hammer, so it comes from Ham,
your Land's name exactly, but it's adopted because.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Everything looks like a nail.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
So, Ted, how'd you first get interested in Scarseller?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
I first wrote about him in twenty seventeen for The
Daily Beast, and then I've since followed his cases and
on a few occasions over the last several years, I've
been the only reporter in the courtroom covering some of
the cases. I'm the only one there. I know that
it's not a case they want to call attention to.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
So fair to say that you are the Scarcella reporter
in Brooklyn.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
I'm not going to dispute that.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
You're the guy who's been at it longest, been at
it well the most.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Over the last six or seven years. Yeah, I would
say so.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
And by the way, Scarcella called me, he said, who's
this guy, Ted Ham who's stalking me? I would say
that from Scarcella's point of view, no love lost he
sees ted Ham the Hammer as an antagonist.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Which makes today's episode interesting because I'd say that the
Hammer's investigation supports some of Scarcella's basic contentions. Remember, Scarcella
loves to point out that he didn't act alone. His
cases had to sign off of the DA's office.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
So Steve approached me in January and raise this question,
which is you would think at some point the ada's
who handle these cases, somebody would say, okay, well, we're
reviewing Scarcelli's cases, but maybe the fact that they handled
Scarcella's cases would lead them to examine these eightas cases.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Right, you did the math, you did the research. You
came up with twenty one convictions of Scarcella related cases
that have been overturned, huge number. We know that that's
resulted in more than one hundred million dollars being dolled
out of tax payer money and settlements.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
And over four hundred years of wrongful incarceration.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
So how do you go about finding out if an
Ada has had other convictions deemed wrongful?
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Well, the people who are familiar with the cases obviously
are the defendant who typically has done extensive amount of
research while they were in prison. On their case. And
then there's their appellate lawyers, who often know other cases
from their research and knowing other lawyers working on these
(07:12):
cases and so on, and then there's always the newspapers.
The prosecutors' names do turn up occasionally, but the DA's
office never wants to disclose the name of the prosecutor,
so they issue long reports. Even when they explain that
the prosecutors has committed misconduct, they end up saying that
(07:35):
misconduct was nothing compared to what Scarcela did. And you know,
they're happy to blame the cop. They're happy to name
the cops scarcel and others, but almost always they do
not name the prosecutor.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Protecting their own or what.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
The view is that they don't want to hurt morale,
they don't want to scare off other prosecutors from coming
to the office. They're going to be thrown under the
bus or whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
So just to be clear, you wrongfully convicted guys, send
them to jail for decades, and then the DA's office
is worried about your morale.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Ted as I look at your research, here's one thing
that jumps out at me. Twenty one scar Seller cases
have been overturned. Of the ada's who helped prosecute those cases,
nine of them have had another fourteen convictions overturned that
were not scar Seller cases. And that's just what you
(08:35):
know by getting on the phone with people, right ted.
It's not exhaustive.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Now, you would need to have the personnel files, I
guess of the DA's office, and they're never going to
turn those over.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
So when you go through these twenty one cases, what's
jumping out at you in terms of the involvement of
the assistant district attorneys.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Scarcella himself, not to defend him, but just to explain
what his position is is that he could not make
any arrest and neither could any Brooklyn detective without approval
of the die's office.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Here's Louis in his own words.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
I brought every case the Brooklyn District Attorney's office, Esa Gomez,
all the witnesses, they were vetted, and they all went
along with my arrest They all went along with my arrests,
and they convicted them.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
So fair to say, I guess that when Scarceli says
that it was the job of the district attorney to
vet and evaluate the cases, that's accurate.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Right, But that doesn't excuse any misconduct on his part
for just rounding someone up and bringing them in and
figuring out how they can charge that person.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah, but I don't see how a prosecutor could say,
oh my god, I was hoodwinked by this detective.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
I agree. That seems to be what their position is, that, oh,
he fooled us. Well, that's shame on you, right, because
how many times can they say that when they went
forward with a bad case. Dozens upon dozens of times,
not just Scarcela.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Let's get to this token boothcase. This is a colossal
headline grabbing, awful murder. There's a guy who's a token
booth clerk.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Harry Kaufman.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Harry Kaufman. Somebody goes up to that little slot in
the front of the token booth, sprays in a flammable liquid.
What is it lighter fluid?
Speaker 3 (10:44):
I think something to that effect.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Es and then lights a match and creates an explosion
inside the booth. This guy, Harry Kaufman, who's the token
booth clerk, hangs on. He's got burns all over his body.
He hangs on for two weeks and finally dies in
the burnyard. This is a case of such incredible sadism
(11:11):
that it just grabs the attention, grabs the headlines. There
is an absolute drum beat to find the person guilty,
person or persons.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Bob Dole, who was the front runner for the nineteen
ninety six Republican nomination, used this as an example of
urban insanity, crime out of control.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
And so Louis Scarcella steps into this case, as he
does with a number of high profile cases, and there's
all kinds of pressure.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Scarcella and a handful of other detectives involved, because there
were many. They got confessions from all three of the suspects.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Louis told us how he got one of the confessions,
and it's pure Louis as bad.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Louie's wife had a terrible kitchen accident and had burns
up and down her body. She too, had been in
the burn unit.
Speaker 5 (12:08):
I started talking to him about mister Kaufman was in
the burn unit. Told him my wife was in the
burn unit, told them how she suffered, told him how
mister Kaufman suffered.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
I hit a core. I hit a core.
Speaker 5 (12:26):
Said I'll tell you if I can visit my girlfriend.
We had conjugal visits and anybody tell you knows a liar. Okay,
we even had them in the Brooklyn d A's office.
I was able to get the confession.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
And they indicted and prosecuted and sent three guys away
for seventy five years. And they turned out that they
were all wrong. Right, none of the evidence that they
were using against the three of them held up. One
witness was consorting with her partner in a car crime
happened after midnight, and so they were having sex in
(13:11):
the car, and then she claims that she saw two
of the three right.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
But initially this witness had said it was someone else,
and then she changed her story, so her credibility wasn't questioned.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
And then I went. One defendant called nine one one
to report the token booth blaze, and then after the
investigations proceeding, they bring him to the precinct and by
the time he leaves the precinct, he's confessed to the crime.
What motive would you have to call nine one one
to report a blaze that he had, in fact had started.
(13:44):
That's just ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
You're saying that the assistant district attorneys in this case
mishandled it.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Right, Scarsella did not prosecute these three guys, right.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
That's right. Three eighty's prosecuted it.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
It was their obligation to wage Scarcella's and the other detectives'
confessions versus other evidence that they had in the case
and to say, well, this may or may not add up.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
So what did the report by the conviction of you say?
Speaker 3 (14:19):
And the reports by the cru that came out almost
three decades later, they raised serious questions about the trial
summation before the jury, saying that they were saying things
that were stretching the evidence. And so there is some
acknowledgment in those reports that there was wrongdoing by the prosecutors.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
The reports point out the bad conduct, but almost always
failed to use the names of the prosecutors. When you
say that prosecutors went beyond the evidence in their summations,
are we basically saying that they lied to the jury.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
They were distorting the abne right, So I mean, whether
you want to call that lies or not.
Speaker 6 (15:04):
And what happened to those three eighty as one judge
another moved to a white shoe law firm in Manhattan,
and then the third, who presided over at least one
other wrongful conviction. One other that we could.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Find is a current member of the Brooklyn District Attorney's
executive team. I wanted to get to two of the
cases that we focused on in the series. I know
you've done some research on Anne Gutman. Anne Gutman was
(15:39):
the prosecutor in the Derek Hamilton case that was eventually overturned.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
We dig into this case in episode nine of The Burden.
Remember that's where we took the trip to the North
Carolina Woods, chatted with the witness who had first told
us she was someone else before revealing herself to us.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
This case against Derek, whatever you believe about his innocence
or guilt, the evidence was not there to convict. And
we really show that the ballistics evidence and the forensic
evidence contradicts the report of the main witness. What does
(16:17):
Anne Gutman do to overcome that small problem. She essentially
lies to the jury. She says, it's not black, it's white.
The forensics supports, the ballistics supports our version of the story,
when in fact it just the opposite. So what happens
(16:40):
is the conviction Review Unit looks at that closely. They
excoriated her.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
We got someone to review the report for us. It
says she quote fell far short of the prosecutor's obligation
to do justice in quote and that she quote significificantly
misled the jury end quote.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Just like in the Token Booth case. Right, So, just
to keep a tally, so far, we have two different
cases in which prosecutors misled the jury. By the way,
in the report available to the public, the criticism of
Anne Gutman was left out. Apparently the district attorney didn't
want to throw one of their own under the bus.
(17:29):
But we know that the full report takes her to task,
not scarsell It. It takes the assistant district attorney to
task for not only mishandling the case, but really for,
in a larger sense, failing to do justice. And what's
interesting to me, Ted is that now that you've looked
at Anne Gutman, you've been able to find that this
(17:50):
is not an isolated incident.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Correct. So, Anne Gutman in nineteen ninety two ninety three
handled the case of Everton Wagstaff and Reginald Connor, who
were accused of a kidnapping and murder of a sixteen
year old girl, but the judge tossed the murder charge
(18:17):
because there was a lack of evidence, but they went
forward with the kidnapping charge. Gutman's case, she was basing
it on the word of a heroin addicted sex worker
named Runilda Capella.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Remember that Teresa Gomez was Scarcella's go to witness. She
was addicted to Kracken, a sometimes sex worker who helped
the DA in six Scarcela cases where she claimed to
be an eyewitness to a murder.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
That seemed like a preposterous number, right, Runilda Capella was
said to have witnessed many more crimes than that.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Basically, what happened, at least during the trial was that
Capella was kept in a lock hospital ward for heroin withdrawal.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
It was later reported that she'd gotten cold feet about testifying,
so the DA arrested her and held her.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
For three days prior to the trial to make sure
she'd be there to testify in court. As they get
to twelve to twenty three years, but then there's a
hearing in twenty ten I think it was, in which
it's revealed that cops had used Capella as a witness
fifteen to twenty times. But Gutman did not disclose that right,
(19:34):
So Gutman did not tell the defense for those two
defendants that this person has this track record.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
And under the rules, a prosecutor cannot hide evidence that
favors the defendant that's considered rigging the game.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Totally preposterous case against these two guys based on this
really faulty witness. But then it went to the Appellate Division,
and the Appellate Division dismiss the indictment. They just said,
this case is a bad case from the jump, and
we're tossing the conviction and also tossing the indictment. So
it was a forceful statement by the Appellate Division about
(20:11):
Gutman's case. Right that happens in twenty fifteen, the same
year that Derek Hamilton's case is reversed by the CIREU.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Right, the Appellate Court specifically challenged the credibility of Capella,
the key I witness.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
So Gutman's handiwork is exposed in two different cases involving
three different convictions in twenty fifteen, and what happens. Gutman
remains the head of the DA's Early Case Assessment BURO
through twenty nineteen or so.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
This Brunehilda saturname Brunilda Brunilda. So you're saying she's used.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
A dozen times, fifteen to twenty times.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
And the DA obviously knew that she was a repeat
witness and a terrible drug addict.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Correct. It makes you wonder if there were others out
there who could put them to shame.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
So would you say pattern in practice of using known
unreliable witnesses to convict people.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
It certainly looks like one, a pattern for sure.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
And has anybody ever picked out that pattern and said,
we need to look at all fifteen or twenty of
Brunilda cases.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Not that I know them.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Remember that the district attorneys CRU looked at all of
Teresa Gomez's cases and moved to overturn four of the
six of them based on Gomez's lack of credibility. So
they looked at Scarcella's witness, but as far as we know,
they did not look at the much more prolific witness, Brunilda,
(22:05):
the one favored by the Adas. And I want to
tell you about one more example of using an unreliable witness,
another one we stumbled onto. This one involves an Ada
named Ken Tab who was head of the DA's Homicide
Bureau for some years he was a prosecutor connected to
(22:27):
one of the overturned Scarcella convictions. That was the token
Booth case. And just fyi, he's been quoted by a
defense attorney as saying, you can't let the truth get
in the way of justice. Consider that for a moment, anyway,
What did he do that relates to unreliable witnesses?
Speaker 2 (22:51):
I love this one. How brought into the case of snitch,
A professional snitch who was so used to helping the
DA that he kept Jobb's phone number in a bible
he carried with him. A guy who seemed to overhear
a lot of incriminating conversations that proved really useful to
the DA and, as one might imagine, to him as
(23:12):
well in exchange for testifying he was seeking help with
his sentences. Shabaz was so unreliable so often that eventually
a judge banned him from contacting any law enforcement unless
it was about his own crimes.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Can it really be a coincidence that, even just anecdotally,
almost by chance, we've come across three witnesses who were
used by the DA over and over and over again.
Three witnesses who were found to be unreliable and who
claimed to have knowledge of something like forty felonies.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
One would ask, what the hell was going on.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Any chance we're noting a pattern here one witness cases
using an extremely unreliable witness.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
I found out from someone who worked in the cru
investigator actually involved in some of these early cases that
got overturned, and she said they never looked at it
in that light, right, even though she had some she
had saw some of the prosecutors with multiple reversals, She said,
(24:24):
they never saw a pattern. So you know, if they
were looking for a pattern, they might have found they
may have found it. If they're not looking for a pattern,
you can say there is no pattern.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
I can tell you what the pattern is, using the
unreliable witnesses again and again and again. My question to
you is why the hell is the DA not done it?
Why do that in Scarcella cases but not where essentially
the power exists.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Because that shows their culpability the das.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
So you're saying the DA's and protecting its own.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
They were say, are we really going to initiate the
process ourselves? Are we going to acknowledge that we've done
X number of wrongful convictions. But I don't think they're
going to pursue that right. I mean they should, they could,
and they should, but I don't think they will.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Interesting, I think you brought a couple other examples.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
In twenty seventeen, there were a couple of different exoneration cases,
and one of those involved the case of Jabbar Washington.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
This was a Scarcella case.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
The prosecutor in that case was Kyle Reeves. In twenty
twenty one, a Brooklyn judge reversed a Brooklyn case that
Reeves had handled, and that in doing so, God criticized
Reeves for his quote blatantly intentional misstatements to the jury.
(25:52):
So clearly stated that Reeves is distorting the evidence, which
he apparently had we had done back in the Jabbar
Washington case.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
So we've now heard three cases of ada's lying or
at best exaggerating the facts to the jury. And remember
this is without any comprehensive database.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
It's misleading the jury. Another pattern worth investigating.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Let's read the statement from the current DA's communications person.
This is something he gave to Ted. Quote. Public shaming
and blaming individuals as opposed to systemic issues are not
part of the objective when the office reviews past cases.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
I find it interesting that they decide to characterize it
as shaming and blaming rather than what it otherwise could
be considered, is accountability ted.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
So you've looked at the Brooklyn DA very closely, what's
your judgment about their approach to doing justice? The word
corrupt gets thrown around by any means it's necessary. But
are they good guys? I want you to be the hammer?
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Okay, all right, So if you're a liberal, typically you
would see good people in bad situations trying to do
their best. But I don't view it from that lens.
I'm more of a leftist, and so I see a
(27:27):
bad system that produces bad actions. I don't judge them
necessarily as bad people, but they did bad things. I
would like to think that I uncovered some uncomfortable truths
about what these prosecutors have done. Certainly the name should
be attached to these wrongful convictions. I'm not saying I'm
(27:51):
damning them for eternity, but this is a fact that
they did take away decades of people's lives. So I
think if they can't face any real consequences, their work
needs to be acknowledged because many of these prosecutors went
on to successful careers and in some cases they kept
(28:12):
prosecuting people wrongfully.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Fair to say that your investigation has shown that there
is no accountability.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Yeah, I don't think there's We you can't point to
anything that any consequence that any prosecutor has experienced that
amounts to accountability.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Right, So, no matter how many wrongful convictions you can
show that somebody is that a prosecutor is responsible for,
there's been no consequence to their career in any way.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Not do we know of publicly those kinds of things
could have happened, and they just don't want to call
attention to it. So we don't know if they move
people around or move them, move them out of the office,
and and so on, you know, So we do. The
personnel matters are in turn all things generally, and so
we don't We don't always.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Know, Okay, but in the Scarcella cases that we've been
able to that you've been able to look at, no
consequences to any assistant district attorney.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Not that I can trace.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
And some have gone on to what kind of offices.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Well, we have at least a few judges in uh,
Nassau County in Manhattan Criminal Court and NASA DA Kathleen
Rice went onto the House of Representatives for four terms
from a long island and many have gone on to
successful lucrative careers in private practice, uh and on down
(29:39):
the line.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
So not to say that crime pays, but it would
seem that cutting corners in prosecution.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Pays in terms of the gaining the convictions. Yes, you
know that's what there, That's what their assignment was, and
they got the convictions.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
And propelling their own careers. Correct.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Don't you think it's time to look inside investigate patterns
of relying on bad when it is lying to jurys.
Isn't it time to investigate what that meant to people's lives?
Speaker 1 (30:17):
We asked the Brooklyn District Attorney for a comment, and
they gave us a statement. They said that the standard
for re examining a law enforcement agent's past cases is
a quote credible indication of intentional misconduct. The statement continues
expanding this rational standard to every instance where a judge
(30:39):
or cru finds faults in a prosecutor's work is absurd. So,
and this is me talking about the DA's office. The
distinction being made by the District Attorney is that that
office believes that Scarcella's misconduct was intentional, but apparently does
not believe that it's colleagues, the ADAS did anything wrong intentionally.
(31:07):
We'll be following up on this, but let me just
say now, lying to a jury does not seem to
me like an accidental oversight. It seems to me like
there must be some intention involved in that. The DA
statement continued. The current Conviction Review Unit is the largest,
(31:27):
best resourced, and most active in the United States. It
goes on Brooklyn. Cru will continue to accept petitions from
anyone who claims that they were unjustly convicted. It will
continue to conduct its reviews with the highest standards of professionalism, transparency,
and accountability, and it will continue to set an example
(31:48):
for jurisdictions across the country.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
If anyone has a thought on this, leave a message
for us at one eight three three eight Burden.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
One note reached out to all the prosecutors named in
this episode. None took us up on our invitation to comment.
For more on Ted's findings, read his excellent article which
came out of this research. It's called the Scarcellophiles. When
unethical prosecutors get off Scott Free. It's in the Independent.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
This episode was produced by Drew Nellis. Our associate producer
and production coordinator is Austin Smith. Sound design was provided
by Bianca Salitis.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
Fact checking by Ryan Alderman, Dax Devlin Ross and me
Steve Fishman. We are your hosts. The Burden is a
production of Orbit Media. Thanks for listening, and now that
you've made it through the credits, don't forget to sign up.
To be a subscriber is easy. Go to the show
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(32:59):
month and you're there. Thank you very much. Season two
of The Burden Empire on Blood will be available everywhere
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be available early and ad free, along with exclusive bonus
content on Orbit's newly launched True Crime Clubhouse, our subscription
(33:23):
channel on Apple Podcasts. It's only two ninety nine a month.
Hi, Steve Fishman here, creator of The Burden as well
as the number one true crime podcast My Friend The
Serial Killer. For those of you who liked The Burden,
I have good news. Season two starts August seventh. It's
a series called The Burden Empire on Blood and it's
the director's cut of the true crime classic Empire on Blood,
(00:22):
which reached number one on the charts when it debuted
half a dozen years ago. Then the fat cat funders
abandon it. I wrangled it back and now I'm thrilled
to share this story of a man who fought the
law for two decades, fought against the Bronx's top homicide
prosecutor and a detective sometimes known as the Louis Scarcela
(00:44):
of the Bronx. It's all coming to you August seventh,
wherever you get your podcasts. Hey listeners, I'm Steve Fishman
and I'm Dax's Devlin Ross. Welcome to another fantastic bonus episode.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Of the Burden.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Before we start, remember that subscribers get more exclusive and
add free bonus content.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
It's easy to subscribe. Just go to the show page
and Apple Podcasts. Say you know Dax Er Steve for
the special exclusive price of two ninety.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Nine a month Dax. You can sell me anything. Today's
bonus is a little bit different than the ones we
usually do. Today we want to make a case. We
want to make a case for an investigation. And first
we're going to make our case to you and our listeners.
We hope by the end you'll agree something needs to
(01:43):
be done. By the way, if you have any thoughts
on this, or maybe you have some information, call us
one eight three three eight Burden.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
So let's start with what we know. Luis Scarcela is
now regarded as a disgrace detective, the most notorious ex
detective in New York. Twenty one cases Louis helped investigate
have been overturned.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Today we're going to focus on the assistant District Attorneys,
the eightas in the Brooklyn District Attorney's office. These are
the lawyers who prosecuted those twenty one wrongful convictions. They
had the power, the authority, the law degrees, but when
it comes to wrongful convictions, they have often skated away free.
(02:35):
For one thing. By law, the DA has immunity. This
means someone who's been wrongfully convicted cannot sue the DA,
he can sue the cops and Louis cases have cost
the taxpayer over one hundred million dollars. But remember, every
wrongful conviction had an ADA presiding over it. The current
(02:58):
DA's conviction review it has overturned lots of Scarcella's cases,
and we need to give current DA Eric Gonzalez credit.
He has made writing wrongful convictions a cause. Still even today,
the reports overturning Scarcella cases often blame him by name.
His flawed work explained in detail. But the prosecutors, the
(03:22):
adas who supposedly vetted his investigations, endorsed his testimony, tried
the cases, put witnesses on the stand, told the jury
what to believe. They get anonymity for the most part,
like you know, it's a professional courtesy.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
And yet one of Scarcella's eightya's had three convictions overturned
another four. Any consequences to their career, Steve.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Yeah, they rose in the ranks, all right, but let's
not get ahead of ourselves.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
To lead the research, we tapped to distinguish Brooklyn based
journalist named Ted ham.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
So, Ted, can you introduce yourself?
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Sure? My name is Theodore Ham. I prefer to go
by Ted and I I am the chair of journalism
at Saint Joseph's University in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, and I've
written extensively about Scarcella cases for The Independent India with
a Y.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Ted's nickname is the Hammer, so it comes from Ham,
your Land's name exactly, but it's adopted because.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Everything looks like a nail.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
So, Ted, how'd you first get interested in Scarseller?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
I first wrote about him in twenty seventeen for The
Daily Beast, and then I've since followed his cases and
on a few occasions over the last several years, I've
been the only reporter in the courtroom covering some of
the cases. I'm the only one there. I know that
it's not a case they want to call attention to.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
So fair to say that you are the Scarcella reporter
in Brooklyn.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
I'm not going to dispute that.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
You're the guy who's been at it longest, been at
it well the most.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Over the last six or seven years. Yeah, I would
say so.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
And by the way, Scarcella called me, he said, who's
this guy, Ted Ham who's stalking me? I would say
that from Scarcella's point of view, no love lost he
sees ted Ham the Hammer as an antagonist.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Which makes today's episode interesting because I'd say that the
Hammer's investigation supports some of Scarcella's basic contentions. Remember, Scarcella
loves to point out that he didn't act alone. His
cases had to sign off of the DA's office.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
So Steve approached me in January and raise this question,
which is you would think at some point the ada's
who handle these cases, somebody would say, okay, well, we're
reviewing Scarcelli's cases, but maybe the fact that they handled
Scarcella's cases would lead them to examine these eightas cases.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Right, you did the math, you did the research. You
came up with twenty one convictions of Scarcella related cases
that have been overturned, huge number. We know that that's
resulted in more than one hundred million dollars being dolled
out of tax payer money and settlements.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
And over four hundred years of wrongful incarceration.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
So how do you go about finding out if an
Ada has had other convictions deemed wrongful?
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Well, the people who are familiar with the cases obviously
are the defendant who typically has done extensive amount of
research while they were in prison. On their case. And
then there's their appellate lawyers, who often know other cases
from their research and knowing other lawyers working on these
(07:12):
cases and so on, and then there's always the newspapers.
The prosecutors' names do turn up occasionally, but the DA's
office never wants to disclose the name of the prosecutor,
so they issue long reports. Even when they explain that
the prosecutors has committed misconduct, they end up saying that
(07:35):
misconduct was nothing compared to what Scarcela did. And you know,
they're happy to blame the cop. They're happy to name
the cops scarcel and others, but almost always they do
not name the prosecutor.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Protecting their own or what.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
The view is that they don't want to hurt morale,
they don't want to scare off other prosecutors from coming
to the office. They're going to be thrown under the
bus or whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
So just to be clear, you wrongfully convicted guys, send
them to jail for decades, and then the DA's office
is worried about your morale.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Ted as I look at your research, here's one thing
that jumps out at me. Twenty one scar Seller cases
have been overturned. Of the ada's who helped prosecute those cases,
nine of them have had another fourteen convictions overturned that
were not scar Seller cases. And that's just what you
(08:35):
know by getting on the phone with people, right ted.
It's not exhaustive.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Now, you would need to have the personnel files, I
guess of the DA's office, and they're never going to
turn those over.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
So when you go through these twenty one cases, what's
jumping out at you in terms of the involvement of
the assistant district attorneys.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Scarcella himself, not to defend him, but just to explain
what his position is is that he could not make
any arrest and neither could any Brooklyn detective without approval
of the die's office.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Here's Louis in his own words.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
I brought every case the Brooklyn District Attorney's office, Esa Gomez,
all the witnesses, they were vetted, and they all went
along with my arrest They all went along with my arrests,
and they convicted them.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
So fair to say, I guess that when Scarceli says
that it was the job of the district attorney to
vet and evaluate the cases, that's accurate.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Right, But that doesn't excuse any misconduct on his part
for just rounding someone up and bringing them in and
figuring out how they can charge that person.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah, but I don't see how a prosecutor could say,
oh my god, I was hoodwinked by this detective.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
I agree. That seems to be what their position is, that, oh,
he fooled us. Well, that's shame on you, right, because
how many times can they say that when they went
forward with a bad case. Dozens upon dozens of times,
not just Scarcela.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Let's get to this token boothcase. This is a colossal
headline grabbing, awful murder. There's a guy who's a token
booth clerk.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Harry Kaufman.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Harry Kaufman. Somebody goes up to that little slot in
the front of the token booth, sprays in a flammable liquid.
What is it lighter fluid?
Speaker 3 (10:44):
I think something to that effect.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Es and then lights a match and creates an explosion
inside the booth. This guy, Harry Kaufman, who's the token
booth clerk, hangs on. He's got burns all over his body.
He hangs on for two weeks and finally dies in
the burnyard. This is a case of such incredible sadism
(11:11):
that it just grabs the attention, grabs the headlines. There
is an absolute drum beat to find the person guilty,
person or persons.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Bob Dole, who was the front runner for the nineteen
ninety six Republican nomination, used this as an example of
urban insanity, crime out of control.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
And so Louis Scarcella steps into this case, as he
does with a number of high profile cases, and there's
all kinds of pressure.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Scarcella and a handful of other detectives involved, because there
were many. They got confessions from all three of the suspects.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Louis told us how he got one of the confessions,
and it's pure Louis as bad.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Louie's wife had a terrible kitchen accident and had burns
up and down her body. She too, had been in
the burn unit.
Speaker 5 (12:08):
I started talking to him about mister Kaufman was in
the burn unit. Told him my wife was in the
burn unit, told them how she suffered, told him how
mister Kaufman suffered.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
I hit a core. I hit a core.
Speaker 5 (12:26):
Said I'll tell you if I can visit my girlfriend.
We had conjugal visits and anybody tell you knows a liar. Okay,
we even had them in the Brooklyn d A's office.
I was able to get the confession.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
And they indicted and prosecuted and sent three guys away
for seventy five years. And they turned out that they
were all wrong. Right, none of the evidence that they
were using against the three of them held up. One
witness was consorting with her partner in a car crime
happened after midnight, and so they were having sex in
(13:11):
the car, and then she claims that she saw two
of the three right.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
But initially this witness had said it was someone else,
and then she changed her story, so her credibility wasn't questioned.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
And then I went. One defendant called nine one one
to report the token booth blaze, and then after the
investigations proceeding, they bring him to the precinct and by
the time he leaves the precinct, he's confessed to the crime.
What motive would you have to call nine one one
to report a blaze that he had, in fact had started.
(13:44):
That's just ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
You're saying that the assistant district attorneys in this case
mishandled it.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Right, Scarsella did not prosecute these three guys, right.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
That's right. Three eighty's prosecuted it.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
It was their obligation to wage Scarcella's and the other detectives'
confessions versus other evidence that they had in the case
and to say, well, this may or may not add up.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
So what did the report by the conviction of you say?
Speaker 3 (14:19):
And the reports by the cru that came out almost
three decades later, they raised serious questions about the trial
summation before the jury, saying that they were saying things
that were stretching the evidence. And so there is some
acknowledgment in those reports that there was wrongdoing by the prosecutors.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
The reports point out the bad conduct, but almost always
failed to use the names of the prosecutors. When you
say that prosecutors went beyond the evidence in their summations,
are we basically saying that they lied to the jury.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
They were distorting the abne right, So I mean, whether
you want to call that lies or not.
Speaker 6 (15:04):
And what happened to those three eighty as one judge
another moved to a white shoe law firm in Manhattan,
and then the third, who presided over at least one
other wrongful conviction. One other that we could.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Find is a current member of the Brooklyn District Attorney's
executive team. I wanted to get to two of the
cases that we focused on in the series. I know
you've done some research on Anne Gutman. Anne Gutman was
(15:39):
the prosecutor in the Derek Hamilton case that was eventually overturned.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
We dig into this case in episode nine of The Burden.
Remember that's where we took the trip to the North
Carolina Woods, chatted with the witness who had first told
us she was someone else before revealing herself to us.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
This case against Derek, whatever you believe about his innocence
or guilt, the evidence was not there to convict. And
we really show that the ballistics evidence and the forensic
evidence contradicts the report of the main witness. What does
(16:17):
Anne Gutman do to overcome that small problem. She essentially
lies to the jury. She says, it's not black, it's white.
The forensics supports, the ballistics supports our version of the story,
when in fact it just the opposite. So what happens
(16:40):
is the conviction Review Unit looks at that closely. They
excoriated her.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
We got someone to review the report for us. It
says she quote fell far short of the prosecutor's obligation
to do justice in quote and that she quote significificantly
misled the jury end quote.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Just like in the Token Booth case. Right, So, just
to keep a tally, so far, we have two different
cases in which prosecutors misled the jury. By the way,
in the report available to the public, the criticism of
Anne Gutman was left out. Apparently the district attorney didn't
want to throw one of their own under the bus.
(17:29):
But we know that the full report takes her to task,
not scarsell It. It takes the assistant district attorney to
task for not only mishandling the case, but really for,
in a larger sense, failing to do justice. And what's
interesting to me, Ted is that now that you've looked
at Anne Gutman, you've been able to find that this
(17:50):
is not an isolated incident.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Correct. So, Anne Gutman in nineteen ninety two ninety three
handled the case of Everton Wagstaff and Reginald Connor, who
were accused of a kidnapping and murder of a sixteen
year old girl, but the judge tossed the murder charge
(18:17):
because there was a lack of evidence, but they went
forward with the kidnapping charge. Gutman's case, she was basing
it on the word of a heroin addicted sex worker
named Runilda Capella.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Remember that Teresa Gomez was Scarcella's go to witness. She
was addicted to Kracken, a sometimes sex worker who helped
the DA in six Scarcela cases where she claimed to
be an eyewitness to a murder.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
That seemed like a preposterous number, right, Runilda Capella was
said to have witnessed many more crimes than that.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Basically, what happened, at least during the trial was that
Capella was kept in a lock hospital ward for heroin withdrawal.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
It was later reported that she'd gotten cold feet about testifying,
so the DA arrested her and held her.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
For three days prior to the trial to make sure
she'd be there to testify in court. As they get
to twelve to twenty three years, but then there's a
hearing in twenty ten I think it was, in which
it's revealed that cops had used Capella as a witness
fifteen to twenty times. But Gutman did not disclose that right,
(19:34):
So Gutman did not tell the defense for those two
defendants that this person has this track record.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
And under the rules, a prosecutor cannot hide evidence that
favors the defendant that's considered rigging the game.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Totally preposterous case against these two guys based on this
really faulty witness. But then it went to the Appellate Division,
and the Appellate Division dismiss the indictment. They just said,
this case is a bad case from the jump, and
we're tossing the conviction and also tossing the indictment. So
it was a forceful statement by the Appellate Division about
(20:11):
Gutman's case. Right that happens in twenty fifteen, the same
year that Derek Hamilton's case is reversed by the CIREU.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Right, the Appellate Court specifically challenged the credibility of Capella,
the key I witness.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
So Gutman's handiwork is exposed in two different cases involving
three different convictions in twenty fifteen, and what happens. Gutman
remains the head of the DA's Early Case Assessment BURO
through twenty nineteen or so.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
This Brunehilda saturname Brunilda Brunilda. So you're saying she's used.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
A dozen times, fifteen to twenty times.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
And the DA obviously knew that she was a repeat
witness and a terrible drug addict.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Correct. It makes you wonder if there were others out
there who could put them to shame.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
So would you say pattern in practice of using known
unreliable witnesses to convict people.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
It certainly looks like one, a pattern for sure.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
And has anybody ever picked out that pattern and said,
we need to look at all fifteen or twenty of
Brunilda cases.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Not that I know them.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Remember that the district attorneys CRU looked at all of
Teresa Gomez's cases and moved to overturn four of the
six of them based on Gomez's lack of credibility. So
they looked at Scarcella's witness, but as far as we know,
they did not look at the much more prolific witness, Brunilda,
(22:05):
the one favored by the Adas. And I want to
tell you about one more example of using an unreliable witness,
another one we stumbled onto. This one involves an Ada
named Ken Tab who was head of the DA's Homicide
Bureau for some years he was a prosecutor connected to
(22:27):
one of the overturned Scarcella convictions. That was the token
Booth case. And just fyi, he's been quoted by a
defense attorney as saying, you can't let the truth get
in the way of justice. Consider that for a moment, anyway,
What did he do that relates to unreliable witnesses?
Speaker 2 (22:51):
I love this one. How brought into the case of snitch,
A professional snitch who was so used to helping the
DA that he kept Jobb's phone number in a bible
he carried with him. A guy who seemed to overhear
a lot of incriminating conversations that proved really useful to
the DA and, as one might imagine, to him as
(23:12):
well in exchange for testifying he was seeking help with
his sentences. Shabaz was so unreliable so often that eventually
a judge banned him from contacting any law enforcement unless
it was about his own crimes.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Can it really be a coincidence that, even just anecdotally,
almost by chance, we've come across three witnesses who were
used by the DA over and over and over again.
Three witnesses who were found to be unreliable and who
claimed to have knowledge of something like forty felonies.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
One would ask, what the hell was going on.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Any chance we're noting a pattern here one witness cases
using an extremely unreliable witness.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
I found out from someone who worked in the cru
investigator actually involved in some of these early cases that
got overturned, and she said they never looked at it
in that light, right, even though she had some she
had saw some of the prosecutors with multiple reversals, She said,
(24:24):
they never saw a pattern. So you know, if they
were looking for a pattern, they might have found they
may have found it. If they're not looking for a pattern,
you can say there is no pattern.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
I can tell you what the pattern is, using the
unreliable witnesses again and again and again. My question to
you is why the hell is the DA not done it?
Why do that in Scarcella cases but not where essentially
the power exists.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Because that shows their culpability the das.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
So you're saying the DA's and protecting its own.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
They were say, are we really going to initiate the
process ourselves? Are we going to acknowledge that we've done
X number of wrongful convictions. But I don't think they're
going to pursue that right. I mean they should, they could,
and they should, but I don't think they will.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Interesting, I think you brought a couple other examples.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
In twenty seventeen, there were a couple of different exoneration cases,
and one of those involved the case of Jabbar Washington.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
This was a Scarcella case.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
The prosecutor in that case was Kyle Reeves. In twenty
twenty one, a Brooklyn judge reversed a Brooklyn case that
Reeves had handled, and that in doing so, God criticized
Reeves for his quote blatantly intentional misstatements to the jury.
(25:52):
So clearly stated that Reeves is distorting the evidence, which
he apparently had we had done back in the Jabbar
Washington case.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
So we've now heard three cases of ada's lying or
at best exaggerating the facts to the jury. And remember
this is without any comprehensive database.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
It's misleading the jury. Another pattern worth investigating.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Let's read the statement from the current DA's communications person.
This is something he gave to Ted. Quote. Public shaming
and blaming individuals as opposed to systemic issues are not
part of the objective when the office reviews past cases.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
I find it interesting that they decide to characterize it
as shaming and blaming rather than what it otherwise could
be considered, is accountability ted.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
So you've looked at the Brooklyn DA very closely, what's
your judgment about their approach to doing justice? The word
corrupt gets thrown around by any means it's necessary. But
are they good guys? I want you to be the hammer?
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Okay, all right, So if you're a liberal, typically you
would see good people in bad situations trying to do
their best. But I don't view it from that lens.
I'm more of a leftist, and so I see a
(27:27):
bad system that produces bad actions. I don't judge them
necessarily as bad people, but they did bad things. I
would like to think that I uncovered some uncomfortable truths
about what these prosecutors have done. Certainly the name should
be attached to these wrongful convictions. I'm not saying I'm
(27:51):
damning them for eternity, but this is a fact that
they did take away decades of people's lives. So I
think if they can't face any real consequences, their work
needs to be acknowledged because many of these prosecutors went
on to successful careers and in some cases they kept
(28:12):
prosecuting people wrongfully.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Fair to say that your investigation has shown that there
is no accountability.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Yeah, I don't think there's We you can't point to
anything that any consequence that any prosecutor has experienced that
amounts to accountability.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Right, So, no matter how many wrongful convictions you can
show that somebody is that a prosecutor is responsible for,
there's been no consequence to their career in any way.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Not do we know of publicly those kinds of things
could have happened, and they just don't want to call
attention to it. So we don't know if they move
people around or move them, move them out of the office,
and and so on, you know, So we do. The
personnel matters are in turn all things generally, and so
we don't We don't always.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Know, Okay, but in the Scarcella cases that we've been
able to that you've been able to look at, no
consequences to any assistant district attorney.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Not that I can trace.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
And some have gone on to what kind of offices.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Well, we have at least a few judges in uh,
Nassau County in Manhattan Criminal Court and NASA DA Kathleen
Rice went onto the House of Representatives for four terms
from a long island and many have gone on to
successful lucrative careers in private practice, uh and on down
(29:39):
the line.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
So not to say that crime pays, but it would
seem that cutting corners in prosecution.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Pays in terms of the gaining the convictions. Yes, you
know that's what there, That's what their assignment was, and
they got the convictions.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
And propelling their own careers. Correct.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Don't you think it's time to look inside investigate patterns
of relying on bad when it is lying to jurys.
Isn't it time to investigate what that meant to people's lives?
Speaker 1 (30:17):
We asked the Brooklyn District Attorney for a comment, and
they gave us a statement. They said that the standard
for re examining a law enforcement agent's past cases is
a quote credible indication of intentional misconduct. The statement continues
expanding this rational standard to every instance where a judge
(30:39):
or cru finds faults in a prosecutor's work is absurd. So,
and this is me talking about the DA's office. The
distinction being made by the District Attorney is that that
office believes that Scarcella's misconduct was intentional, but apparently does
not believe that it's colleagues, the ADAS did anything wrong intentionally.
(31:07):
We'll be following up on this, but let me just
say now, lying to a jury does not seem to
me like an accidental oversight. It seems to me like
there must be some intention involved in that. The DA
statement continued. The current Conviction Review Unit is the largest,
(31:27):
best resourced, and most active in the United States. It
goes on Brooklyn. Cru will continue to accept petitions from
anyone who claims that they were unjustly convicted. It will
continue to conduct its reviews with the highest standards of professionalism, transparency,
and accountability, and it will continue to set an example
(31:48):
for jurisdictions across the country.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
If anyone has a thought on this, leave a message
for us at one eight three three eight Burden.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
One note reached out to all the prosecutors named in
this episode. None took us up on our invitation to comment.
For more on Ted's findings, read his excellent article which
came out of this research. It's called the Scarcellophiles. When
unethical prosecutors get off Scott Free. It's in the Independent.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
This episode was produced by Drew Nellis. Our associate producer
and production coordinator is Austin Smith. Sound design was provided
by Bianca Salitis.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
Fact checking by Ryan Alderman, Dax Devlin Ross and me
Steve Fishman. We are your hosts. The Burden is a
production of Orbit Media. Thanks for listening, and now that
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Dax-Devlon Ross
Steve Fishman
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