Agnieszka Rybak
Prof. Blumberg
AMP 101
Wrongful Conviction
The article “State to Give 2 Wrongly Convicted Men $1.65 Million Each”, written
by Michael Wilson and published by the New York Times in 2003, tells the story of two
men (Anthony Faison and Charles Shepherd) who were found guilty of murder in 1987 of
Brooklyn cab driver Jean Ulysses. Both men in reimbursement received $ 1.65 million
each for serving fourteen years in prison as the result of a wrongful murder conviction.
The jury found them guilty mostly because of a witness who had testified that she
saw Faison and Shepherd shooting the cab driver. However, later the witness admitted
that she was lying because she wanted to receive a $ 1,000 reward.
Money rewards are given to people who help the police by pointing out the
person who committed a crime.
In 2001 Faison and Shepherd were released from a prison as result of discovery
made by a retired police officer. The detective uncovered that fingerprints on a car
matched to Alert Cheston, who then admitted that he had murdered Ulysses. When the
truth came out, both men filed a claim against New York State in the Court of Claims.
The lawsuit was brought under the state’s 1984 law that allows awards in wrongful
conviction cases.
Before the trial had ended the two men had been offered $ 1.65 million each by
the attorney general’s office as compensation. The settlement given Faison and Shepherd
was the second-highest in New York State history. Ronald L. Kuby and Daniel M Perez,
attorneys for the men, claimed that nothing like this would have happened if the police
did better job, instead of giving money to almost any one.
When a representative of the attorney general’s office, Brad Maione, was asked to
comment on the case and its conclusion, he declined to do it.
At the end of the article Wilson said that the State Court of Claims cleared out
only 27 of 175 unfair conviction cases so far. This statement from the Court of Claims is
forcing us to ask: are those who have been wrongly convicted of a crime most likely to
receive justice? Undoubtedly we can say that people who have been imprisoned for a
crime which they didn’t commit can’t get justice. Unfortunately those who have pleaded
guilty for not committing a criminal act are less likely get justice because as we know
from and article in 1985, there were 175 wrongful conviction suits, of which 148 were
dismissed, 12 ended in awards and 15 were settled, and money is not enough to pay for
years spent in prison form something what you didn’t do.