Eric Smokes and David Warren, two men who grew up together and ended up going to prison as teenagers for a crime they did not commit, have just finally been exonerated in New York.
A judge on Wednesday overturned the convictions of Smokes and Warren, who had been convicted of killing a French tourist on New Year’s Day 1987 in Times Square.
The nightmare began early on January 1 of that year, when a tourist named Jean Casse (71) was attacked and robbed in Midtown Manhattan. He was brutally beaten and died from his injuries, and within days NYPD detectives charged Smokes, then 19, and Warren, 16, with robbery and murder.
It was a high-profile crime at a time of escalating violence in New York City and simmering racial tensions. Tabloids claimed that “savage” black youths were planning to attack whites, he recalled. NBC News.
Childhood friends Eric Smokes and David Warren hope Wednesday a judge will vacate their convictions in a 1987 Times Square murder they have long said they did not commit.https://t.co/Ch3hhz9eYT
— Wrongful_Conviction_News (@WC_broadcasts) January 31, 2024
The two men always said they had traveled with friends to Manhattan to see the famous New Year’s Eve fall in Times Square, but they were never near the crime scene.
They had an alibi and no physical evidence linked them to the crime, but police used several other teenagers to implicate Smokes and Warren. Both were found guilty and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.
The main witness against the two was a career criminal who, years later, signed an affidavit admitting that he had lied. Since then, other witnesses have also signed affidavits in which they claim to have been pressured to lie by police officers and/or the prosecutor. Smokes has said that he and Warren were ideal to be used as “scapegoats.”
The two friends kept in touch from different prisons over the years, writing to each other once a month. They promised to prove their innocence together, even if it was once released.
After spending more than 20 years behind bars, both men were eventually paroled: Smokes in 2007, Waren in 2011. Both married former high school sweethearts and became construction workers, but they didn’t forget the weight of injustice.
The two eventually won a hearing on evidence discovered in 2018 after several witnesses recanted. Still, New York State Supreme Court Justice Stephen Antignani supported the position of the district attorney’s office, which argued that the witnesses who recanted were not credible.
Alvin Bragg, elected Manhattan District Attorney in 2021, formed a Post-Conviction Justice Unit that reinvestigated the case and in October 2023 sent a letter to the court recommending that the convictions be overturned.
Among the rulings, the unit noted that photographs of the accused and witnesses were “out of place” and were not located until after the evidentiary hearing. No one could explain why that evidence wasn’t found sooner.
Attorneys for Smokes and Warren plan to file a civil lawsuit and say they will call the original detectives and prosecutors from 1987 and the assistant district attorney who led the evidentiary hearing that began in 2018.
“In recent years, a growing number of convictions from the 1990s have been overturned, when skyrocketing crime led New York City police agencies to make arrests at all costs,” he noted. New York Times.
“Since 1989, about 124 homicide convictions have been overturned in New York City, a notable share of the 1,317 overturned nationwide, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. “Those whose names have been cleared have been overwhelmingly black and Hispanic.”
There are some cases that are more notorious than others and even longer-standing. Last November, Muhammad Aziz, an 85-year-old man who spent two decades imprisoned falsely accused of killing legendary activist Malcolm They targeted the real killer to protect the agency’s covert operations against the African American civil rights movement.
Also in the fall of 2023, it was announced that George Bell will receive $17.5 million from the City of New York as compensation for the injustice of having spent 24 years in prison for a double homicide he did not commit.
Similar situations have also happened in recent years in other New York counties. In early November, prosecutors overturned his conviction in Brooklyn against Detroy Livingston, who spent 35 years in prison for a homicide that he did not carry out.
Last October Paul Scrimo regained his freedom after spending 18 years in prison for the death of a woman, although he always insisted on his innocence on Long Island. In August a judge ordered new trials for Brian Scott Lorenz and James Pugh, who have always maintained their innocence after being convicted of murdering a woman in 1993 inside her home near Buffalo, New York.
After spending 19 years locked up for a murder he did not commit in Brooklyn and more than three decades of legal battle to clear his name, Emel McDowell was practically reborn in March when a judge agreed to overturn his conviction.
Also in March 2023, Sheldon Thomas regained his freedom after spending 18 years in prison for the murder of a girl in New York that he did not commit.
In December 2022, it was announced that Johnny Hincapié, a native of Colombia who spent 25 years in prison for the murder of a tourist he did not commit, would receive almost $18 million in legal settlements with the city and state of New York.
In November 2022, Shamel Capers was released after spending eight years in prison for a homicide he did not commit: a teenager shot aboard an MTA bus in Queens. Previously, in June 2022, a man was released after spending almost eight years in jail and under house arrest after being wrongly accused of the murder of his friend in Queens.
In May 2022, it was announced that New York City would pay $10.5 million to a man who was wrongfully imprisoned for 24 years to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit against a former detective and two other officers. In July 2021 in Staten Island (NYC), a murder conviction was overturned for the first time, after a man spent 23 years unjustly imprisoned.
In late 2021, a Hispanic former school guard who spent 10 years in prison because Queens prosecutors allegedly withheld key evidence and tampered with witnesses, settled his lawsuit against the city for $6.25 million.
In September 2021, a wrongly convicted man who spent 33 years behind bars accused of stabbing and strangling a teenage girl reached a $16 million settlement on Long Island. It was the longest homicide case to be overturned in the history of New York State and one of the longest in the entire United States.
Also in 2018, several cases were reported of men in New York who spent years in prison for crimes they did not commit. Since then, other injustices have been recognized.
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