I've been asking to see some video surveillance that we could use to timestamp his whereabouts from the moment they picked him up. I understand that the park is desolate but how did he get back home to ENY on the night of the murder? If by walking or by using the subway, we should have him on video on the night of the murder.
3
Call it the Law and Order effect, circumstantial evidence should lead to reasonable doubt not a guilty verdict
3
@Roy Crowe A confession, the presence of the murderer's DNA under the victim's fingernails, and photos of the victim on his phone are not "circumstantial" evidence.
5
These jurors were not very sophisticated at all! In fact many of the black jurors were suspicious of the police and have inclinations of conspiracy theories. In any other jury pool Chanel would have been found guilty in a heartbeat with this amount of forensic evidence. You don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to come to that conclusion.
11
It is hard to believe that other DNA, so-called casual "contamination" of the forensic evidence at the crime scene, could have been forced under the victim's fingernails.
What were those jurors thinking? Or were they just feeling?
Tribalism, the inability to piece things together logically, science illiteracy, and disdain for norms: We are in trouble.
11
The distrust of the police is real.This guy didn't look like he could tie his own shoe.When you read stories of cops lying in court and still carrying a badge like it never happened. And other who are sued by people that claim abuse and the city defends the cops then end up settling lawsuits and the cop is put right back on the streets to continue doing what he was accused of before.Distrust of the police if the reason why the jury was deadlocked.
2
Under torture, he would have confessed of killing the last dodo.
Too convenient.
And not really a slam dunk case if the 'confession' says she drowned, and the police says she was strangled. They do not match, so how do you accept such a confession in the first place?
1
Because if she drowned in a puddle then he didn't kill her? It's a tough thing, I would guess, to admit you've strangled someone.
4
Is “being black in Howard Beach” a crime now? ”Wearing a hoodie” and “acting suspiciously” are dog whistles. The defendant was arrested under suspicious circumstances and without knowing what happened between his initial denial and subsequent confession, and the Details of the DNA evidence, I am not sure he is the murderer. When the crime was reported, I thought the father was the killer because his story(ies) did not add up. He is retired NYPD or FDNY so of course his “brothers” didn’t investigate him.
2
@Lynn in DC
He was not charged for “being black with a hoodie” anywhere. He was charged with rape and murder, with his DNA on the victim’s body and under her fingernails.
You’re not even sure if “her father was retired NYPD or FDNY”, yet you’re willing to jump to conclusions that “his brothers didn’t investigate him” and you “thought her father was a killer”?
That’s exactly the mindset of a tin hat conspiracy theorist.
Do you think it’s more likely multiple NYPD and/or FDNY responders conspired to frame someone by planting his DNA under the victim’s fingernails, busting his hand as if he punched someone, talking him into a false confession, and placing him at the murder scene without an alibi - or that maybe, just maybe, he actually did what the evidence clearly shows he did?
Wake up. Killers shouldn’t get a race card pass. Evil is evil, and it comes in all shapes, sizes and colors.
8
@Lynn in DC the murderer's DNA was found under the dead murder victim's fingernails. How did it get there if he had no physical contact with her?
3
The jury Casey Anthony’d this trial.
Every now and then you get a high-profile murder case with a few tin hats in the jury whom the defense attorneys steer into far-fetched conspiracy theories to explain away overwhelming evidence.
I don’t think this phenomenon makes a “more sophisticated” jury as the article states - just the opposite.
They demonstrate a lack of basic critical thinking skills, inability to separate biases from facts, and a mindless willingness to playing the devil’s advocate.
8
Another OJ verdict. Some of the jury in the OJ case were quoted as saying that they didn't even understand the theory of DNA testing. Defense attorneys always try to select the lowest IQ people for juries and it looks like that is the case here. Young women should never jog in isolated areas and they should carry something to defend themselves.
1
@Abbott Hall well, fortunately (for you) another jury corrected the record and sent him to prison on bogus charges.
The oj trial went on for 11 months. Don’t blame the jury for the outcome.
Yes, crime labs have made mistakes, police have been guilty of misconduct, and confessions have been coerced. It is right to thoroughly question and consider such possibilities in any case. But, particularly in the case of DNA evidence, mistakes are few and far between and VASTLY outweighed by the tens of thousands of victims and families who have obtained justice as a result of solid DNA science. And the science is solid. The idea that his DNA could have gotten on her phone, necklace, and under her fingernails without actual physical contact is beyond absurd. They had to have physically interacted. The comments denigrating forensic DNA science in general are a slap in the face to the dedicated scientists and law enforcement officials who have put in decades of work in this arena and have saved untold lives by getting killers off the street and have provided justice to victims and their families. This is another example of the public's eroding confidence in science brought on by those who deny evidence contrary to their belief systems or political views. For shame.
8
Beyond a reasonable doubt based on the totality of the evidence. Sounds like the jury made the right decision. No probable cause other than some racist cop sniffing out an easy fall-guy to frame. A "confession" that omitted the hours of previous interrogation by a mentally disabled young man easily intimidated and manipulated. And DNA "evidence" that is easily planted, or 'mishandled.' A disgusting and inflammatory allegation with no evidence that the defendant 'digitally' raped the victim should have been ruled out by the judge.
The most offensive criminal act is that the cops don't really care who killed the victim, a woman if color (hmm), who is likely still walking around.
Why aren't the white jurors who immediately decided to convict not questioned by readers? Why are they not termed "holdouts?" Why are they not termed racist in their blind "trust" in the acts and lies of cops and prosecutors? Instead the"minorities" are deemed to be 'suspicious' and unreasonable. In fact these discriminated victims have far more experience with the actual conduct of cops, than the white jurors who watch a few episodes of "Law and Order" and think they have a clue about the CRIMINAL 'justice' system.
This is not jury nullification, this is the rare example of justice. The US conviction rate is around 99% because there are no fair trials (in fact there are almost no trials, 96% are blackmailed into "plea bargains").
2
There's no way to read the arrest of Mr. Lewis months later as anything but racist.
Simply wearing a heavy jacket and acting oddly makes NO ONE a murder suspect.
Only a really foolish interrogating officer would continue if he/she realized the suspect is mentally slow. That kind of thing can easily be used against the prosecutor come trial time.
The parallels to the Central Park Five care are obvious, even if here there is clear evidence that the accused at least touched and photographed the body.
1
I hope if I or someone I know is ever the victim of a violent crime that the NYTs posters on this article aren’t jurors. They seem to be hopelessly biased. To think that there are people who go into a trial assuming all confessions are coerced, all DNA is planted or contaminated, and all other evidence is due to racial bias is freighting. With these assumptions, we might as well let all arrested suspects go, especially if they are a POC.
3
Is this the OJ jury at work again ?
DNA evidence under her fingernails matching the suspect's is pretty much all the evidence you should need.
Did they really believe the victim and suspect touched the same rock, and that's how the DNA got under her nails ?
I only hope that any rapists and murderers released because of such foolish thinking spend their waking hours in the neighborhoods of those jurors.
9
A Jury make up is all about race, and has been. We are a nation divided on race no matter what the spin is. This is very sad for our nation. The cops have hurt justice and the media implies that it is the intent of the police is to shoot black people. A jury of blacks will rarely convict one of their own. Remember OJ.
3
This young man is Willie Horton all over again
There's going to be a Law & Order SVU episode about this, I expect....
1
New York cops really love the "perp walk," don't they?
Murderers, rapists, pedophiles and sociopaths walk free all the time. It’s just shocking when they are poor, black and mentally disabled. I wish we could trust police and our criminal justice system again, that would be a start.
Man, people get so defensive when a black man is accused of killing a white woman. It's OJ all over again. Evidence tampering! Cover up! Racism! Or maybe, you know, he actually did it? It's really not a foreign concept.
3
"... jurors are starting to doubt such evidence."
Really? I would've thought the problem is that "jurors" have doubts and suspicions about the people collecting the evidence, because hardly a day goes by when we are not treated to yet another extravaganza like that of Biscayne Park, Florida, police chief Raimundo Atesiano convicted of ordering his officers to arrest people for crimes they did not commit.
1
I have another theory.. the prosecutors didn’t make this a case about a suspect with a learning of developmental disability because it may come across as he not being culpable for the crime and in not addressing that, it came across as law enforcement slickly trying to prosecute a developmentally impaired man with murder. I get this thinking because my family has a person with similar issues and the idea that they may get intangled with law enforcement has always been terrifying. To think that they may be framed for a murder the press wants solved is inconceivable.
4
@Brooklyn Confidential You realize his DNA was under the victim's fingernails, he confessed to the murder, and there were photos of the dead victim on his phone, right? Why is there no sympathy for the victim and her civilized family from liberals?
3
What part of my comment indicated I didn’t believe in his guilt? Or that I’m a liberal? Or that there wasn’t any sympathy for the victim’s family? Yeah, none of it because you’re assuming things based on your own idea that this world is split into liberals or conservatives. Pretty ignorant.
2
Jury nullification.
6
Why? You mean because the 5 white jurors had already made up their minds that the Black man is guilty? Based on the reported "facts" the cops just framed the first Black guy they could railroad. Remember cops are trained profesional--liars.
1
@R. R.:
So making a legit case isn't important to you?
It's more than a little interesting that DNA evidence plays such a central role in this case. Often, DNA evidence is used by various organisations to exonerate someone who was wrongfully convicted. If DNA's reliability as evidence is called into question, it will make it that much more difficult to get people off death-row and out of prison who have no business being there. Be careful what you ask for.
6
It wasnt as if ONE juror was skeptical of the evidence. HALF of the jurors were unconvinced. That is a lot of uncertainty. I agree with many comments below that while the police have been guilty of coercing confessions and mishandling evidence, it isnt up to us, and it isnt about the past or what we THINK happened.. The jurors heard the case, and were not convinced that beyond reasonable doubt there was cause to find him guilty. A second trial will show just how far this "evidence" goes towards conviction. A woman was brutally murdered. Let's hope the murderer is found and imprisoned. but in America the process is still innocent till proven guilty.
5
@Robert Glinert
So if i understand you correctly, our past should not inform our present?
Those jurors shouldn't view the evidence through the sum of their experience?
Based on that why don't we have you just decide every case.
They will retry, and they should retry, but the real message here is 1) a sadly understandable erosion of faith in the reliability and quality of crime labs and 2) our increasing empirical knowledge about the prevalence of coerced confessions.
It may be that neither were at work in this case, but it is inevitable that more and more prospective jurors will have heard the confirmed stories about police misconduct and ineptitude.
These problems may be present in only a small percentage of cases, but there is a stench in the land nonetheless, and it shouldn't surprise us that skepticism and cynicism in the pool of prospective jurors is one result.
2
"Over the last 20 years, several cases involving false confessions have surfaced, and DNA evidence, while seemingly convincing, has not always persuaded jurors who have concerns about police integrity."
This vastly understates the problem of wrongful convictions and false confessions. Please do a modicum of research before including this as a throwaway line in this story. The innocent men and women are sitting in prison right now need it.
2
It is a shame when the credibility of the evidence, police and prosecutors is so troubling that jurors have to question whether the prosecution of suspects was tainted and the accused not properly treated while obtaining a confession for crimes they may or may not have committed.
This is what happens when the criminal justice system unfairly treats minorities and the poor. Too many cases years later have been set aside and we, the public, through our tax dollars, have paid huge sums of money to those found not guilty.
Based on the evidence and the cop's suspicion that this gentleman should be considered a suspect, I believe is quite troubling and, based on this article, does not appear to be beyond a reasonable doubt.
It is also sad that a young woman's life was taken, the family wants justice, and it seems this case's high profile may have resulted in the mistrial due to the shoddy handling of evidence and preconceived bias towards the suspect. We all should demand more accountability from law enforcement, prosecutors, and our judges. It is sorely needed for the accountability and faith in our criminal justice system. I applaud the jurors who voted no for their courage and belief that the way this case was handled was not up to par to convict.
2
@MOL Oh good grief. What you are "applauding" is the jurors' racism against the victim because she was white. And you probably share that racism, since you "applaud" it in others.
5
[[DNA evidence has not always persuaded jurors who have concerns about police integrity. The skepticism is higher in minority communities where relationships with law enforcement have been strained, legal experts said.]]
It's not just "police integrity."
In addition to being bullied, beaten or threatened into making a confession - deprived of water, sleep, phone calls and a lawyer - if you finally get a court appointed lawyer with dozens of other cases, you'll be pressured to take a "deal." Once the prosecutor has obtained a conviction or a plea, getting the case reviewed - much less overturned - is a near impossibility, as we have seen cases reversed only after men have spent decades behind bars.
3
“There is a sophistication now among a lot of jurors that we haven’t seen before in understanding confessions can be false and that the DNA evidence needs to be examined"...
You've got to be kidding.
Anyone with any sense has always known it's possible confessions are false or coerced. The question of course is how probable is the occurrence of coercion in a specific case, and what is the evidence for it.
And what does the average person actually know about DNA and the science of forensics using DNA. Virtually nothing.
You have to go by the totality of the evidence, the testimony of all the "experts", whether from the DA's side or the defense's side, and any other relevant confessions, facts or information. Then you make a judgement.
It seems this jury chose to ignore the confession and the DNA under the victim's fingernails. Hard to comprehend.
11
Because there have been so many scandals involving police corruption and misbehavior, jurors are rightly asking more questions about police actions. Every day it seems I read another article about police lying on the stand, planting evidence, or otherwise breaking the law.
Likewise, the presence of DNA does not by itself prove guilt. All it proves is that the accused and the victim interacted. And confessions usually are coerced in some way, shape, or form.
So it's not really all that surprising that many juries are casting a more skeptical eye towards the actions of law enforcement.
4
@Matt DNA under the victim's fingernails, coupled with the perp's confession, AND photos of her body on his cell phone don't indicate guilt to you???
1
I am an old white guy and even I have read of cases where the police have essentially framed a suspect (usually a black male) for a crime. And I have also read of cases where crime labs have also doctored their analyses to help the cops and prosecutors convict someone.
I would support the enactment of laws which would make any member of law enforcement, the prosecutors office, or a crime; lab who knowingly participates in any attempt to frame a suspect for a crime they didn't commit, serve the maximum sentence the suspect was sentenced to or might have been sentenced to.
5
The price we pay for manipulated dramas presented as documentaries like "Making a Murderer" and the ceaseless energies of groups like the Innocence Project to sell half-truths to gullible (or worse, cynical) reporters who smell a Pulitzer as soon as some scoundrel walks out of jail.
Throw in shows like CSI which convince the ignorant that every case should be locked down by hi-tech gadgetry and it is a miracle anyone gets convicted.
My sympathies to the people who loved this woman and no doubt would like to see justice done. Maybe the next jury will be smarter and have more integrity.
12
@Philboyd the Innocence Project has gotten many truely innocent people out of jail. It is not some evil organization manipulating people. It the work of some dedicated hard working volunteers correcting injustice. “Making a Murder” case is also not cut and dry by any means.
1
Race colors our 'truth' along with our own life experiences.
I'm assuming the Jury was diverse and thought the young man was being framed. Maybe so but where does justice lie for the victim and her family. Hopefully, the second trial will get closer to a court ruling that is 'fair' to both the victim and the defendant,
7
The last thing that the judge, who has some intelligence, wanted to see was this murderer walk. That is why he quickly declared a mistrial and disbanded the jury so that all would return another day, ostensibly better prepared to obtain an appropriate result.
49
@MIKEinNYC
I know nothing about this matter, but your comment certainly displays a preconceived idea. What verdict is "appropriate"?
2
@MIKEinNYC So what you are saying, is the judge wanted to convene a less astute jury. Because he believed the man would get off, because of the likelihood of police planting information to support a coerced confession?
1
This trial was a "slam dunk" for an all white jury. The scary black guy in a hoodie. But if you have been living under police harassment or the threat of it for all your life, not so much. Forced confessions, "testilying", planting evidence, et. al. are so commonly exposed that "reasonable doubt" for a jury member of color is not a stretch. The "you can go home if you confess" promise to a developmentally challenged suspect who has never been away from home is simply not credible. And the TV cop show "hunch" that precipitated the arrest was suspect itself. The retrial will be all about jury selection.
34
@Jack All trials are about jury selection, the selection process by nature and execution as biased as the rest of the system.
3
@Jack
Him being arrested and tried doesn't seem to be about the hoodie though. The defense attorney's argument that his DNA could have been on her neck because she happened to touch a remote random object that the suspect happened touch strains credulity! As reported in the article he had images of the crime scene on his cell phone, evidence of a recent traumatic injury to his hand that would be consistent with punching someone etc. The take home message here is for the police not to mention that a suspect is wearing a hoodie in their police reports or the perp will walk because of a mistrial. The "hoodie" defense.
23
@Jack
"Forced confessions, "testilying", planting evidence, et. al. are so commonly exposed"
Citation needed. In my opinion, you're taking exceptions you might have seen on Netflix documentaries and making them the rule. I realize it may be tough for people of color to be unbiased, but to behave as conspiracy theorists towards DNA evidence is to reject modern police work as we know it. We could set free literally hundreds of convicted murders and rapists if DNA evidence and video taped confessions are now considered "shaky" evidence. This trial was all about race for a couple of the jurors and so be it. The judge did his job properly and set up a retrial.
2
The evidence seems to be pretty conclusive but it seems the jurors doubt not what the evidence says but how it was handled and who was handling it. That is reasonable.
Perhaps the prosecutors thought the evidence was so convincing that they could be less diligent. That is possible.
If the police mishandled the evidence, even without malice, that is a problem.
If the jury deliberations were tainted by people with a preconceived agenda, as I have personally witnessed in my experience, the trial should be moved somewhere else.
The judge made the right decision under the circumstances and hopefully, eventually, justice will be served.
17
@Steve B.
This sentence certainly implies mishandling of evidence being a concern:
"One of those jurors also questioned why DNA evidence had been handled by several officers before being turned over to a lab"
13
@interested party:
What you call conclusive evidence is evidence the accused touched the body, and photographed it.
Given that Mr. Lewis is mentally challenged, the "confession" is useless, since it lead to no solid evidence of his involvement.
1
What strikes me reading these comments and the information about how the jurors were divided is the difficulty many people have separating the trial at hand from all the trials about which they have heard.
The question is not, are some people who fit a demographic guilty of some crimes. The question is, do you have enough compelling evidence that that specific person committed that specific crime to overturn his presumption of innocence.
The question is not, do police sometimes plant evidence. The question is, do you have any evidence that those specific police officers planted that evidence.
The question is not, do police hunches sometimes turn out to be wrong. The question is, should the fact that Mr. Lewis was arrested on a hunch have any effect on your perception of his confession.
The question is not, are some confessions coerced. The question is what evidence do you have that that confession was coerced or was freely given.
Most of the comments here contain blanket statements about the perception of the state of justice in America, none of which is useful to those jurors in that room making a decision on that case.
The judge and the two sides in this case now know what hurdles stand between them and convincing 12 jurors of the validity of their claim.
If justice is to be served they need to find jurors who can separate the specifics of that case from general feelings. That isn't easy.
70
@Crazy Me
Law holds the accused innocent until proven guilty.
The burden of proof is on the prosecutors to show that
- evidence doesn't "appear" to be planted
- there is sufficient cause to suspect the accused. For person with developmental disability to wear a hoodie on a hot day isn't sufficient cause.
- confession doesn't "appear" to be forced
NOT on the defense to show that prosecutors didn't do any of these things.
8
@Unbiased No, the prosecution's burden is not to show that something does or doesn't "appear" to be something, but to prove the facts of the case beyond a reasonable doubt.
8
@Crazy Me
It is impossible to separate specifics of a case one is judging from other cases in which one has participated and it is unreasonable to expect that to happen. I was recently on a jury retrying a first degree murder case in which the defendant was originally convicted in a "slam dunk" prosecution.
Research done subsequent to the first conviction found the detectives hid or "misplaced" very compelling evidence exonerating the defendant. It also came to light that the prosecution paid the only eyewitness who put the defendant at the scene of the shooting AND that eyewitness had two felony charges dropped after the initial conviction. AND it turned out that the judge in the first trial allowed the defendant's statements, made prior to being told he was a suspect or read his Miranda rights, to be used as evidence of "consciousness of guilt."
After eight days of retrial we the jury were dismissed and the original conviction was set aside. I have no idea what deal was struck but I do know that I will forever remember the willful and intentional proprietorial misconduct that put a man in jail for five-years.
10
Without regard to whether the defendant was guilty or not, imagine being a juror on a case in which you believe the defendant may have been guilty, but uncertain. Very uncertain, because the prosecutors had clearly not proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
So, you truly believe the defendant committed the crime, but not sure. On top of that, tremendous pressure from the family, community and law enforcement to convict.
Do you let the defendant free that you think is guilty?
I wouldn't want to be put in that situation.
28
@John Doe
If you aren't sure he's guilty, that's the very definition of reasonable doubt. In such case, you should vote not guilty.
Apparently people need to be reminded that the American justice system is predicated on the idea guilty people should be allowed to go free in order to insure that innocent people aren't incarcerated.
62
Defendants do not win cases; prosecutors lose them. In a very un-even fight between the DA, backed by the police, community, the state forensics lab, and the law, the defendant almost-inevitably loses, especially if -- as it seems here -- he has developmental problems. A case like this should be a slam-dunk for any prosecutor who had done his or her homework. Sounds as if the DA didn't. Yes, one can argue that juries are getting smarter or more questioning, but the simpler reason may be that the DA didn't think to put in as much time and effort as the case needed. Sloppy.
J
20
@John Doe Would you convict a defendant that you think is not guilty due to tremendous pressure from the family? You would not because there was reasonable doubt!
7
I don't know if Mr Lewis is the killer of Ms Vetrano but I do know that if I was in the jury I would probably be very skeptical of the evidence provided by the prosecution. We have all been down this road before where the DA's office tell us they have an abundance of evidence and it turns out the confessions are coerced and the physical evidence is sketchy. The Courts and the police are reaping the fruits they have sown with their decades of unjustly arresting and convicting people especially POC for crimes of which they were innocent. We are left with a system of justice built on a foundation of shifting sand where cretins like Jeffrey Epstein get sweet heart deals for heinous crimes, the Catholic Church an ongoing child rape criminal enterprise gets a pass and young black men sit in jail for over 2 years without trial for a petty crime they never committed. Justice is not blind its being drowned in a tide of corruption.
120
@AC DNA under the fingernails of the victim is "sketchy" evidence? Unless you want to believe it was deliberately planted there by the cops, in which case you may as well forget about ever convicting anybody of a crime. Then you'll have murderers and rapists walking the streets, and you better watch out for your mother, sister, and daughters.
39
@Mark Can you stop using women as props in your fear-mongering, please. Let's remember that men are overrepresented as both the perpetrators AND victims of violence. So please spare me the "mother, sister, daughters" stuff, or take the next bus back to the Victorian times from whence such a mindset came.
15
@Mark
It is sketchy because our DA's and police have a track record of offering up sketchy evidence without ever being held accountable. I don't want the killer of Ms Vetrano to go free but I have seen enough coerced confessions and planted evidence in my life time to consider it par for the course if the alleged perpetrator is poor and or black.
"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer. ..."
12
Several comments are focusing on how he his DNA was found on the victim. I'm not sure how many of you have actually done genetic (DNA) extraction and analysis, but let me assure you as someone who has done extensive genetic work - in a lab, with clean samples, under ideal conditions, it is often far from a 'slam dunk'.
If you have an isolated quantity of fresh body fluid (blood, semen, etc) that was obtained immediately from the victim, placed in a test tube, and brought immediately to the lab, it is very straight forward and is conclusive proof.
If you're looking at some quantity of material obtained from underneath someone's nails (the human hand is a pretty filthy environment) that has been handled by numerous individuals (I'm not assigning malcious intent, it's a simple fact that contamination increases multiplicatively with more people handling a sample) and within that sample there happens to be a profile... I would be much more hesitant about drawing any conclusions, and if it's only a partial (I haven't seen any actual data on the DNA isolates), the validity of the sample is even worse.
There are additional issues with his 'confession' - search 'false confessions' on PubMed for a host of excellent articles on issues with confessions (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed).
I'm not saying he's not guilty, simply that from a scientific perspective (based solely on what has been presented in the media) there are holes in the evidence large enough to drive a car.
8
Does it mean a new trial or not?
1
@Shenonymous
Yes, the D.A.'s office has said that they will retry him.
The judge did the smart thing. Those jurors were not going to budge. Declare a mistrial, keep the defendant in jail and have another trial where the prosecution can sharpen its arguments.
11
We need a criminal justice system that the great majority of people trust. We don't have that, because police, prosecutors and judges have frequently and regularly arrested, prosecuted and sentenced people who turn out to be innocent. This sounds like a case where the defendant is "probably" guilty, but there is not proof "beyond a reasonable doubt." The result in cases like that should be an acquittal and not a hung jury.
5
The irony involved in this article is displayed full-force after reading the NYT article a few days ago about the inherent unfairness and immorality of Prosecutors seeking to exclude jurors of color - especially when the defendant is a person of color.
When groups of people decry science and legal procedure and fall back on magical thinking - it is only reasonable for Prosecutors to seek to excuse them.
Imagine the guffaws that would greet a host of climate-deniers lobbying to sit on a scientific board to identify global warming mitigation strategies
14
@SteveRR. Are you suggesting that jurors of color are prone to magical thinking? You certainly seem to be trying to justify the exclusion of people of color from juries. Prosecutors don’t exclude white people when the defendants are white. There’s no excuse for a separate standard for people of color. If you’re going to eliminate people who are prone to magical thinking from juries, then no religious person would be eligible. Under that standard only we atheists and agnostics would be eligible to serve on juries.
1
I obviously have no idea about the guilt or innocence in this case. what always gets me is if the person is innocent and the state only focuses on and tries the one person, even if convicted, the actual guilty party is still at large.
this is why I hate it when the police lie and provide false evidence and testimony.don't they care about the actual criminal?
6
Crimes are often solved by officers acting on hunches. According to the article, "Mr. Lewis had attracted Lieutenant Russo’s attention three months before the murder, because he had been walking slowly through Howard Beach, wearing a hoodie on a sweltering day, stopping to look at houses and “acting suspiciously.” He wasn't arrested just because he was a black person wandering though a mostly white neighborhood. The officer picks a man whose DNS match DNA found on the victim's body.
He confessed to assaulting the victim because he knew the police found his DNA under her fingernails, the classic DNA evidence of sexual assault. He decided to admit the assault and hoped to beat the murder rap.
13
@William Case Really? So are you say coercion is out of the question here?
@Connie Yes, it is. The evidence was far and away enough to convict. This debate is like the one about OJ - it's now widely accepted he was guilty and should have been convicted. This is no different.
7
@William Case
I mean technically I GUESS your summation of how this guy came to be a suspect is completely sober and entirely correct BUT proclaiming that the defendant was accused of murder MERELY for 'walking while black' is so much more pithy and digestible, so I'm afraid we're going to go with that simple-minded, fantastical narrative instead- facts be damned. OK? Cool.
2
@Phyliss Dalmatian In many case it's the enlightenment of people regarding DNA evidence. The DNA evidence most often used in prosecutions is not in fact airtight but quite broad in scope and could easily be matched in the same way to others. Likewise it's quite rare to get a strong DNA sample; most are incomplete samples, vague, too small, too old, damaged, compromised. I would not hazard an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of Mr. Lewis, but had I been on the jury I'd have questioned everything those jurors did and more.
As someone living in a heavily mixed area and a decades-long researcher of criminal justice, I've both read and experienced far too much to believe out of hand anything prosecutors present or police officers say. Not to mention the fact that "all" of the evidence is rarely allowed for jurors to hear, nor is all of the defense evidence allowed.
Skepticism is not necessarily indicative of ignorance, but rather very often of intelligence. The very fact of our incarceration rates compared to the rest of the world's should make one question what's going on in our 'justice' system that it produces so little justice.
16
@Jrb What total garbage. The animal that did this crime CONFESSED. You just don't care about the victim and her family because they are white. Admit it.
23
@me My opinion is not based on blind ignorance, but actual data easily referenced by the interested. Likewise the data on false confessions. I am white also. Always question. And always search for the truth. Justice for all, both for victims of crime and for victims of ignorance, is impossible to achieve without those two things.
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@me a confession doesn't mean guilt. that's just a fact of the current police-state that we're in.
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In light of the jury's lack of agreement, the "alacrity" of the judge's dismissal suggests that there is more to this case than is revealed in the coverage.
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Chanel Lewis is innocent! This is the Central Park 5 all over again.
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@Ann You mean, because he is black and his victim was white therefore you are fine with her murder. Either that or you don't know what DNA is, and you think he lied when he CONFESSED.
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@me You mean, because he is black and his victim was white therefore you are fine with his wrongful conviction. Either that or you don't know what DNA contamination is, and you think that this special-needs man detained and interrogated for hours on end wasn't coerced to confess.
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@Ann:
Okay Ann then how do you explain the photos of the body found on Lewis' cell phone?
By the way, I agree that the evidence presented (from what I've read in the NYT) isn't strong enough to have convicted Mr. Lewis. And that his. arrest was both false and based on racism.
The case has parallels to the CP5 case, but Mr. Lewis did have some interaction with the body of Ms Ventrano, and that is a big difference.
When organizations like The Innocence Project are no longer needed, I’ll stop questioning coerced confessions. I’ve instilled in my family a simple rule for any interaction with police that could result in an interrogation: shut up and lawyer up.
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@Mark The Innocence Project is a great organization that has helped to free many innocent people. But they do it with hard evidence, such as DNA. Which was found under the victim's fingernails in this case and matched to the suspect. Yes, in interactions with the police, if there is any possibility that one is potentially being accused of a crime it is probably best to shut up and get a lawyer, or at the very least, have one present during the interrogation. But the police are there to protect citizenry, and starting with the premise that they are basically corrupt is both a disservice to people who risk their lives on our behalf and dangerous our society.
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This explains it all
"He was arrested on what amounted to a hunch from a police lieutenant, who, months before the murder, had seen him “acting suspiciously” as he wandered through Howard Beach, a mostly white neighborhood where the murder happened"
Smells like a cover up to me.
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@Wood1
"Mr. Lewis had attracted Lieutenant Russo’s attention three months before the murder, because he had been walking slowly through Howard Beach, wearing a hoodie on a sweltering day, stopping to look at houses and “acting suspiciously.” He wasn't arrested just because he was a black person wandering though a mostly white neighborhood.
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@William Case
According to you - "He wasn't arrested just because he was a black person wandering though a mostly white neighborhood."
Is that fact or another "hunch"?
@William Case:
Yes, he was arrested for being black in Howard Beach.
Remember the arrest happened something like 6 months after the murder.
Wearing a heavy coat on a warm day IS NOT acting suspiciously regards a murder of 6 months ago.
Lieutenant Russo is a racist.
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They're letting a murderer go out of racial bias. It works both ways.
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@Jim
Say why?
How do you know Mr. Lewis a murderer?
No, I don't know all the details, nor did I witness the Trial or deliberations. From what I've read about the actual DNA Evidence, it is fantastically UNLIKELY that this person is not the Killer. The dumbing down of America extends to Juries, even in Blue States. My condolences to Her Family.
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@Phyliss Dalmatian Wow! For the first time, you and I agree on something...
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@Phyliss Dalmatian
So, you weren't in the courtroom, but you read a few newspaper articles and you're 100% sure he's guilty. Perhaps he is, but if you want to look at the dumbing down of America, look in the mirror.
@Phyliss Dalmatian given how corrupt many police are, and the number who handled the evidence, it seems entirely possible they planted his DNA.
While it may be possible that he committed the crime, being a black man in a white neighborhood should not be considered sufficiently "suspicious" behavior to warrant being arrested and interrogated.
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@Matt D. Hello - he CONFESSED and his DNA was found on the victim's body.
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It was more than that he was just black. Read the story.
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@Steve B.
Please explain how any or all of wearing a hoodie on a sweltering hot day, and looking at houses is suspicious and identify to whom it is suspicious. What is your evidence that Chanel Lewis was looking for cameras or potential witnesses?
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Wow! OJ redux. Creepy. Identity politics at its worst. DNA under the poor girl’s fingernails - got there magically.
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@Mel
OJ got off because Mark Fuhrman testified that he had never used the n-word, but evidence showed it was practically his favorite word leading the jurors to think if he lied about a minor issue, he is lying about everything else.
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@Lynn in DC Even if he had lied, there was still more than enough evidence and no way he could have planted any evidence at all. It's been well documented that jurors in that trial stated they would not convict no matter what the evidence, strictly for racial reasons.
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@Ariel
Fuhrman was a, if not the, major witness for the prosecution. He was a police detective and presumed to always tell the truth. The fact that a law enforcement officer LIED on the witness stand compromised the prosecution’s entire case. Statements actually or allegedly made by jurors after the trial hold no weight compared to actual testimony.
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He's probably guilty.
With only that 'understanding,' I can't even convict from the comfort of my computer 'perch' -- but I'm pleased to see that "walking in Howard Beach while black" has progressed over the last 30 years from 'inviting' a mob of 'loser-"white"- kids' to chase such a one to his beating death near the Horace Harding bordering the BQE, to 'merely' provoking a race-based suspicion by a 'race-based cop' (and an unconstitutional arrest that has not even yet resulted in the expected unconstitutional conviction).
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Short of shooting back (Not recommended) this is our only way of keeping the police "honest". We use the jury trial to stop them.
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@Gene Allowing a rapist and murderer to walk free despite DNA evidence UNDER FINGERNAILS is how we fight back in a just society? That's absurd.
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@Caroline remember, the DNA evidence was found under her fingernails by police, who have a vested interest in closing this case. the evidence could have been planted or incorrectly established. I don't trust the police and that is a sad thing.
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I hope the names of the jurors are not available to the public, because the article makes it possible to identify the "Asian" and the "Indian" jurors -- only one Asian and one Indian is mentioned in the tallies of juror votes.
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@MP I need to correct myself: only the "Asian" juror would be identifiable (if he has an Asian-sounding name); the "Indians" are mentioned in plural.
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DNA evidence? Hand injury? Taped confession? Doesn't seem to me the victim received justice. This in my opinion is a product of an unjust, unequal society led by a cult of nonbelievers in science and evidence, who approach the justice system as an adversary. This attitude has infected all levels of society, to the detriment of all.
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Reasonable doubt with his DNA under her fingernails? And on her neck? Give me a break. The judge was smart to declare a mistrial rather than wait for jurors to return a non-guilty verdict. At least now the prosecutors have another chance to present their case (hopefully more convincingly this time).
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@Dana A "mixture of DNA" under the fingernails lacks the statistical power we associate with an individual profile, and has featured in numerous wrongful convictions.
I can understand most of the arguments against conviction except one. How does the accused's DNA get transferred to beneath the fingernails of the victim?
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@Jake - By tampering.
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@Jake DNA "evidence" is rarely conclusive. TV shows lead people to believe otherwise.
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@John You mean that after the body was taken to the morgue and examined by the Coroner, the DNA retrieved from the suspect was deliberately planted under the victim's fingernails so that the Coroner could go back and find it? Or maybe they managed to postpone the Coroner's inquest long enough so that the cops could plant it. Or maybe they all engaged in a conspiracy to tamper with the evidence. Or perhaps we should conclude that cops are basically corrupt and we should let the criminals roam the streets and do whatever they want.
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This is a clear case of jury nullification.
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@Left Handed
It is not. Please look up the definition of jury nullification.
1
What does it look like when people are fed up and start to rebel?
There are various groups feeling that way, rebelling in various ways. That confuses the issue.
There are none so blind as those who refuse to see. Too many refuse to see the stewing rebellion in varied parts of our community.
This case can be summarized as distrust of the police. Five jurors felt that distrust well founded in their experiences, and it showed in their emotional reactions to the police. How did that happen? It was not overnight, it was not some slight cause.
Meanwhile, how did Trump get elected?
If we look, the US is not alone. See France. See Britain. See Italy. See even Germany now.
What do they have in common? Large numbers who feel driven down, who resent and distrust (for some real reasons).
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