QUESTION
Are procedures in place right now to review all cases that have been adjudicated to ensure no wrongful convictions?
0:48:47
·
6 min
Council Member Yusef Salaam, citing his role with the Innocence Project, questions the NYPD on their procedures for reviewing adjudicated cases to ensure no wrongful convictions. The NYPD's response outlines a three-pronged approach involving close work with DA's conviction integrity review units, internal oversight mechanisms, and the benefits of a modern electronic case management system for transparency and continuous case review.
Yusef Salaam
0:48:47
One of those hats is that I sit on the board of the innocence project.
0:48:51
And the work that we've done kind of guides me in terms of asking questions like, are there any procedures that the NYPD is putting in place right now to review I kinda almost wanna say all of the cases that have been adjudicated so far.
0:49:16
And the reason why I say that is because as you can imagine, as I was sworn into office, I also received 100, if not thousands of phone calls from people that are in prison right now.
0:49:30
My my staff received so many letters, and we're trying to figure out how do we address this.
0:49:36
So many people are telling us, I like you.
0:49:39
I'm in prison for a crime that I didn't commit.
0:49:42
And of course, some of it some of it involves DNA, some of it does not involve DNA.
0:49:48
But what I found is that people in prison who are actually guilty They say to themselves, man, I just got caught.
0:50:01
But the ones who are not guilty always maintain their innocence.
0:50:06
Always echo that.
0:50:07
And so I'm wondering, is there a process?
0:50:10
And I know that they have inter conviction integrity units and and things of that nature from the DA's office.
0:50:15
But from the police department itself trying to make sure in fact that no one goes to prison for a crime that they did not commit.
0:50:22
And I know that there's things that we're doing today but just from, you know, I'm this is gonna be 35 years later for me, April 19 1989.
0:50:32
And that's a long period of time in terms of going back to verify, in fact, that every single person that is there is there rightly are.
0:50:45
Those who are not are released.
0:50:48
Because, like I said, in I was I on on this part, you know, with the innocence project work in New York City alone, there have been hundreds of people that have been released through the efforts of the in the innocent's project through DNA evidence.
0:51:01
And when I think about the innocent's networks around the nation, thousands of individuals through DNA evidence have been released.
Josh Levin
0:51:09
So I think we're going to be saying a lot up here the important part that DNA plays.
0:51:13
I think the innocent projects 63% or so of cases exonerated via DNA.
0:51:18
But also in the role that it does, you know, helping to make sure that the right person on god forbid a sexual assault cases brought to justice.
0:51:24
But in regards your question about what we are doing.
0:51:26
I think there's 3 prongs.
0:51:28
I think the first prong is the hand in hand work that we do with the conviction integrity review units of the DA's offices.
0:51:36
They wanna review cases and we want them to be able to review cases because we need to make sure we are on the right side of this.
0:51:42
And so when they ask for records, we could say, go get a subpoena, which you can't get unless there's litigation.
0:51:50
We could say foyling.
0:51:52
We don't do that.
0:51:53
We work hand in hand with them to make sure they get all the records they need.
0:51:57
Cold case files 20 years ago.
0:51:59
We produce those.
0:52:00
We go we wanna make this is important to us.
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We wanna get this right.
0:52:03
So that's factor number 1.
0:52:05
Factor number 2, we have a lot of mechanisms internally that give oversight to the investigative process and the work that the officers themselves are doing.
0:52:16
You have supervisors.
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You have integrity control.
0:52:20
You have higher level chiefs.
0:52:22
Everybody's reviewing.
0:52:25
And so there's always eyes on these things internally.
0:52:28
And then I think the third factor is, I I heard what you said that you weren't I deed in the lineup and yet.
0:52:35
Conviction anyway.
0:52:36
And I do just wanna say that I think there has been a sea change in the public understanding, as well as the amount of scrutiny that the defense, the prosecution, and the the bar themselves puts on things now.
0:52:49
And so I feel like you have multiple layers of oversight.
0:52:51
One of the most important being the d e's themselves are gonna be like, this no.
0:52:56
This is not the we got the whole video interrogation is recorded.
0:53:00
And so if there was a mistake or a problem or something wasn't recorded, that's a basis for saying, we're not gonna do this.
0:53:08
So And we welcome to scrutiny.
0:53:11
I think it's because we take pride and I shouldn't speak for but
Joseph Kenny
0:53:14
Go ahead.
0:53:15
If if if if I may, just going back to the you know, the the way that the cases are are reviewed.
0:53:21
You know, previously, cases were paper.
0:53:25
They were kept in a folder and the lead detective would have that folder in his desk, and it was inaccessible to anybody.
0:53:33
That detective had that case and quite frankly could put it anything he wanted in there that was involved in the case.
0:53:40
What we have now is an electronic case management system that's done online everything is done electronically.
0:53:46
So there's everything is time stamped.
0:53:49
Everything is done in real time.
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Everything is accessible.
0:53:53
To multiple layers of supervision in the NYPD, but not only that, the district attorney's offices also have access to our electronic case management system.
0:54:03
So they can go in and look at what the progress of the cases or what steps might have been taken wrong or right.
0:54:09
They can then question.
0:54:11
As far as my level, I do case reviews constantly.
0:54:14
The cases are reviewed for Comstat.
0:54:16
The cases are reviewed for borrow stat, spikes stat, dom stat.
0:54:20
It's all they're always being reviewed.
0:54:22
And like I said, they they everything is time stamped.
0:54:25
It's done a chronological order, and it's there to be viewed by the district attorney's office.
0:54:29
All video interrogations are forwarded to the district attorney via this electronic management system or body worn camera that's added to the case is forwarded to them.
0:54:40
They can watch it in real time.
0:54:42
They don't have to go digging through it.
0:54:43
We have transparency with that.
0:54:45
We we give that to them.
0:54:46
If we do see that a detective is struggling, I'm not just talking, you know, a wrongful conviction, but in any case, we can go back and review their 10, 15, 20 previous cases to see is there a pattern of misconduct or is there just a pattern that the detective needs some training to see what's going on with it?
0:55:03
So we provide all of that.
0:55:04
Then add on top of that, everything that we do once an arrest is made immediately goes to discovery.
0:55:11
The defense attorney has provided everything that we have.