The New York Times: a man spent 18 years behind bars because of a photo of another person
An innocent New Yorker, USA, spent 18 years behind bars after a witness identified him in a photo of another person. About it informs The New York Times.
On Christmas Eve in 2004, there was a shootout that killed a 14-year-old boy and wounded a man. The police showed the witness photographs of six suspects in the crime, and he chose the picture of Sheldon Thomas. This was enough to send Thomas to prison for 25 years.
During the re-investigation, which was carried out many years later by the district attorney’s office, it turned out that the photograph was not of Sheldon Thomas, but of his namesake, who lived in the same area. Investigators, prosecutors, and the judge who delivered the verdict knew about this and deliberately punished the innocent.
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A few months before his arrest for murder, Thomas pointed a faulty gun at a police officer. Since then, the police have been looking for reasons to send him to jail. When the murder happened, they decided to blame Thomas for it and forced the witness to choose the wrong photo.
Although Thomas claimed from the outset that he was elsewhere at the time of the murder, he was identified three times during personal identifications. For this, witnesses were involved, the reliability of which was in doubt.
A year and a half after Thomas’s arrest, the chief investigator admitted under cross-examination that he had provided false evidence about the photographs. Later, another investigator stated that the police knew Thomas not only from a photograph, but also from an anonymous tip. He admitted that Thomas had told them that he was not the man in the photo. Despite this, the judge ruled that the police had reason to arrest Thomas on murder charges.
In 2023, the prosecutor’s office reviewed the case, revealed a false photo-identification and challenged the prosecution’s arguments. Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Matthew D’Emic said they were not sure that the verdict was correct. After a retrial, the judge acquitted Thomas. After being released after 18 years in prison, the man said that he forgives the investigators, prosecutors and the judge, who deprived him of half of his life. “God be their judge,” he said.
Earlier it was reported that a resident of the US state of Hawaii served 23 years for a murder he did not commit. Based on new DNA tests, the man and two people sentenced with him were excluded from the list of those involved in the crime.
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