Ken Thompson's Review of Scarcella Cases Produces Its First Three Exonerations

Sorry this is so late. Better late than never, right?

From the village voice:

By Albert Samaha Tue., May 6 2014 at 12:05 PM

 

Last year, then-Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes announced that his office would review around 50 cases involving former-detective Louis Scarcella. Scarcella's alleged dirty tricks included coercing confessions, coaching witnesses to lie, and hiding evidence favorable to a suspect.
Hynes, a 24-year incumbent, lost re-election in the fall largely because of his role in overseeing those and other cases involving possible prosecutorial misconduct. The man who replaced him, Ken Thompson, campaigned on cleaning up Hynes's mess. Within his first five months on the job, he exonerated three inmates wrongfully convicted during the '80s and '90s. Those cases, however, were not part of the Scarcella files.

So last month, around 50 protesters took the steps of city hall, calling on Thompson to speed up his review of the Scarcella cases. Perhaps the voices got to him or perhaps the timing was coincidental. But, as the New York Times reported on Monday night, Thompson has announced the first three exonerees from the Scarcella review: Darryl Austin, Alvena Jennette, and Robert Hill.

Austin and Jennette had been convicted of killing Ronnie Durant in 1985. The investigation went nowhere for two years. Then Scarcella took over the case and he quickly located an eye witness: Theresa Gomez claimed to have seen Austin and Jennette commit the murder.
Meanwhile, prosecutors did not disclose to defense attorneys a police interview with two witnesses familiar with the crime who said that Austin and Jennette were not the killers.
Even though Gomez's testimony included details inconsistent with the physical evidence, it was enough to persuade the jury.

Gomez, the New York Times revealed last year, offered damning witness statements for six murder cases that Scarcella worked on.

Hill's case was one of those as well.