A man imprisoned for 25 years on a murder conviction, based on a single eyewitness who had something to gain, and walked out of a courtroom a free man on March 10th, 2016.
In 1991, the now 49-year-old, Andre Hatchett, was convicted of slaying Neda Mae Carter in a park in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn.
Brooklyn DA Ken Thompson consented to have the conviction reversed since it was based on a sole eyewitness who didn’t immediately identify Hatchett – and who claimed to recognize the killer from a distance of about 40 feet on a rainy night.
“We are incredibly grateful to (the DA), without which Mr. Hatchett may never have received justice,” said Barry Scheck, of the Innocence Project. “This was a cooperative, non-adversarial search for the truth that should be a model for all who do this work.” At the time of the crime, on Feb. 18, 1991, Hatchett was recovering from several gunshot wounds to his throat and leg and was confined to crutches. The eyewitness, named Gerard Williams, originally said the killer in the dark park had a crutch, then later changed that detail. Williams even identified another man entirely, according to the investigators’ case file – a detail which was never released to Hatchett’s attorneys at the time of the trial.
“Sadly, the evidence we uncovered reveals that the system failed him at every step in the process,” said Jim Brochin, a lawyer from a New York firm who represented Hatchett for the Innocence Project. “Bad judgment and errors plagued this case from beginning to end.”
This article is relevant to forensic news today because right now we are seeing more and more cases popping up where people that were convicted of serious crimes years back and have been imprisoned for decades are getting let out finally for crimes they did not commit. It is time that forensic scientists step up their game with identifying criminals because we by all means have the technology and ability to do so.
My critique of this article is that there needed to be more evidence to back up the claim as to why they let Andre Hatchett out of prison after 25 years solely because there was only one witness present. I would have liked to have read more evidence as to why he was not guilty; the whole article was sort of a summary of the events of the murder, so I would have liked to have read more of why he was let off.
Augenstein, Seth. "Murder Conviction, Based Solely on Eyewitness Testimony, Reversed after 25 Years." Forensic Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2016.
1 comment:
I reviewed Kathleen’s current event on the article, “Murder Conviction, Based Solely on Eyewitness Testimony, Reversed After 25 Years.” I think that she did a good job giving background information on what was wrong with this case back in 1991, that caused Andre Hatchett to be wrongly imprisoned for 25 years. She also did a good job describing why the conviction was overturned due to the lack of evidence and how the system failed Andre Hatchett at every step in the process of being convicted. I also thought that her opinion of the article was well presented because I also feel that the article did lack some of the details regarding the overturning of the conviction. I think she could’ve improved her current event by adding a little more information on what actually happened the night of the murder so that the reviewer can understand how Andre Hatchett could not be connected to the case. I also think the review could be improved if more background was put in on who Andre Hatchett was as a person to give more personal to the case. Overall, I was impressed by Kathleen bringing up how this article is about just one of the many instances that are popping up of someone being wrongly convicted many years ago due to negligence and lack of forensic technology. I think it's important that we are going back and reviewing cases so that anyone who was wrongly imprisoned could receive the freedom they deserve.
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