Wrongfully convicted man released after 27 years

[gollygee]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/09/nyregion/released-after-27-years-an-ex-inmate-is-mindful-of-a-detectives-cases.html?_r=0

In 1989, a jury found Mr. Shakur guilty of a double homicide based on evidence amassed by a now retired detective, Louis Scarcella, whose credibility and investigative methodology were called into question in a 2013 examination by The New York Times.

Mr. Shakur was convicted of murdering Fitzgerald Clarke and Stephen Hewitt, in a dispute over car payments, and sentenced to two consecutive terms of 20 years to life. The case, brought while Charles J. Hynes was the Brooklyn district attorney, hinged on the eyewitness account of a brother of Mr. Clarke, and on Mr. Scarcella’s testimony that Mr. Shakur told him that he had killed the men. “They were going to kill me,” Mr. Scarcella claimed Mr. Shakur said. “They deserve to die.”

Mr. Shakur, 50, denied ever making such a confession, and maintained his innocence throughout his 27 years in prison. Indeed, Mr. Scarcella could produce no handwritten notes to back up the typewritten confession, which Mr. Shakur never signed.

“Let’s be clear: It’s not just me,” Mr. Shakur said at a news conference held in the offices of his lawyers, Ron Kuby and Leah Busby. “I just left a jail with four other people who have Scarcella cases, who are fighting to get out also, who are fighting to have their cases heard.”