Why would the "case" be any stronger the second time around?
And why does the NY Times suppose to imply that's now things are firmed up for the prosecution?
The police arrested a guy for acting weird, which should be grounds for throwing out the case. It isn't, even if it is racist.
The guy is mentally challenged, why would anyone press him to confess? Such confessions are in fact a sign of innocence often. Confessions that don't involve leads to new evidence are separately questionable.
The DNA? All that proves is that the accused in some manner handled the body.
Seems like a lot of bad police work here, and seems like a prosecutor overreaching with a second attempt.
Some days before the 2018 case ended in a hung jury, the NY Times published an article implying that a conviction was immanent. Even going by that reporting, it was obvious there are (note verb tense) huge holes in the case.
Those holes haven't disappeared in the last few months; that arrest for no reason months after the murder is a huge hole.
8
The OJ case is relevant because in a case where I personally believed he was guilty it was quite obvious to me that the police planted evidence (the bloody glove that didn't fit) to try to get a conviction. Sadly there is a long and dark history of police framing people for racist reasons, although, with the case of OJ, they didn't have to. What they ended up doing, discredited their own case and made justice impossible to achieve. I have no idea whether anything similar happened here or not, but the questioning is certainly understandable. DNA under the fingernails is pretty damning, as was the evidence against OJ. But so too, in that case, was the evidence of a State apparatus out of control.
I am absolutely disgusted. She had his DNA under her fingernails. There are no "alternative facts" or conspiracy theories that would place his DNA under her nails. She fought for her life. I am so sick of jurors deciding that their politics beliefs about the greater American culture (many of which are true!) are more important than the lives of women. I'll never forget how OJ was set free despite scores of 911 calls from his battered and abused wife. I don't think it's a coincidence that women's lives are the ones devalued when jurors bring their personal bias into a courtroom.
36
@Caroline Actually, everyone discounted Ron Goldman's life, too. No one seemed to care about him...
9
Were you there? Did you see what happened? The first jury who heard all the evidence wasn’t convinced he killed her. It will be interesting to see what this jury thinks but either way, the prosecution wasn’t able to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt the first time, let’s see if they can this time.
Also The NY Times didn’t point this out but they found his DNA mixed with other people’s DNA which means the other folks could be guilty according to your philosophy. The DNA method they used is so controversial they had to stop using it.
5
What is the relevancy of allowing the victim's parents to testify? I'm trying to imagine what they could possibly contribute to the weighing of the evidence in determining guilt or innocence of the accused?
It seems to me that the judge, in allowing them to appear is trying to stack the deck for a conviction by invoking intense emotions in the jury at the expense of a reasoned deliberation of the facts.
5
Her mother was the last one to see her alive and her father found the body. In a murder trial, those witnesses are called whether they are the victim’s parents or not.
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@Paul Gat What's wrong with allowing the family to express their anguish? Don't they have a right to their anguish? Why is their pain so trivial and unimportant to you?
6
In the penalty phase of the trial, yes. During the prosecution, no. They were on the stand for purely procedural reasons (see my comment above)
The rapist murderer's skin (DNA) was under her fingernails, on other parts of her body and even on her cellphone. Someone kidnapped, raped and murdered this young woman who was minding her own business and simply out for a jog on a nice day. Some male snuffed out her life and forever traumatized her family and friends. Lewis' DNA was all over her and her phone, the hand injury, the pix on his cellphone. Exactly how do his lawyers contend Lewis' and Ms. Vetrano's DNA co-mingled, other than him raping and killing her?
There has always been a violent war on women and girls, especially those who dare venture out their front door alone. Whenever the crime rate temporarily declines, the rape and murder of females does not decline.
So how many female victims now will never get any justice when the race industry insists every black or latino male is a choirboy persecuted by society - particularly the violent degenerate males, whom every society as well as their families already give a pass to for simply being born male.
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@Maggie
Can you please provide some evidence that "violent degenerate males get a pass from every society for simply being born male" ? Seems to me that in Western countries a lot of those are in prison, and rightly so. The overwhelming majority of those born males do not appear to be either violent or degenerate, or so the incarceration statistics say.
There is of course an issue with violence suffered by women, which must be stopped. But the issue here seems to be jury selection, and seems to apply to all sorts of trials conducted in the US.
1
@Maggie There is no "war on women and girls".
When violent crime goes down (as it has been for the past decades) "the rape and murder of females" does decline.
"So how many female victims now will never get any justice when the race industry insists every black or latino male is a choirboy"
As for this it depends on the race of female and the male and how they compare to each other on the intersectionality hierarchy.
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@Russian Bot Violent crime has increased in many US cities - (Houston for example) and has increased by close to 30% in NYC, ever since DeBlasio took office.
2
To suspect DNA evidence is nonsense. But blacks often suspect anything having to do with the justice system because of profiling; some real, some not. It is beyond credible to believe this man didn't murder this woman. And his confession doesn't sound coerced at all. Do we really even have a justice system anymore?
Judges in ATL are refusing to send violent criminals to jail, based on race. Instead they are put on probation or released with time served. Recidivism in our city is now a joke. We have murderers and robbers that have been convicted over 50 times for violent felonies! 1% is responsible for over 80% of our crime, but the judges won't jail them and the police have all but given up. I know this isn't relevant to this man or his alleged crime, but just because your black doesn't mean you are innocent. For too long blacks were arrested and/or harassed for 'being black.' But the backlash of late is a symptom of the pendulum going too far in the other direction. And this effort to balance the race of the jury is infuriating. Would we do this for Muslims, Catholics, men, women, transgenders, etc.? Maybe we should just let the accused pick his/her friends and they can be the jury.
Lastly, and again off topic, after watching the strenuous efforts and costs going into making sure this man has an unbiased, evidence-based trial makes me wonder how the far left can continue to attack Trump, seeking new evidence gained anyway possible.
12
Politically, can a black man be convicted of killing a white person today, without some historical or personal justification or without some flaw in policing or some mitigation, in NYC?
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The article states:
1) That the prosecutor performed a four-hour videotaped interrogation of Mr. Lewis; and
2) That the defense highlighted signs that the confession was coerced.
How could it be coerced if it was videotaped?
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@David Weinkrantz What? In what way does videotaping preclude coercion?
https://www.innocenceproject.org/causes/false-confessions-admissions/
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@David Weinkrantz
maybe the signs were on the videotape?
what I'd like to know is how Vetrano's neck touched something that Lewis dna had touched without his actually touching her
4
The article says "[after] a four-hour interrogation, however, he told a Queens prosecutor in a videotaped interview."
The article dose not say the prosecutor was present for the interrogation because they are frequently not there. Neither NYS nor NYPD require that interrogations be videotaped.
There should be one overriding concern. The police have to get the right guy, because if they don't, they are allowing this crime to happen again.
So they have a major incentive to not coerce a false confession and especially, to not plant DNA. Or they would be deliberately allowing the real killer to go free.
The U.S. justice system is unfair and has been almost forever. Rich guys go free. Blacks are held in jail for decades for crimes they didn't commit. When finally proven not guilty and freed, they emerge with irreparable, destroyed lives.
But automatically dismissing technology that has actually served to free black men, such as DNA, cell phone information, etc., can backfire. It can allow the guilty to go free, and the innocent to be found guilty.
Jurors may not want to believe evidence based on their personal experiences. I have had very negative experiences with police officers. They treated me with suspicion and disrespect when I had committed absolutely no crime at all (I was a manager in a company in Manhattan).
I am also skeptical of cops because I have had cops in my own family (full disclosure: I am black) who were flawed in their personalities.
But I also know that the kind of evidence that a juror can dismiss in this case, i.e., DNA and cell phone data, can in the right circumstances prove my innocence when I am accused of a crime.
The cops know in this case that they have to get the right guy. Or it will leave another woman vulnerable.
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@Marc
I think the problem is that the police are often more concerned with getting the case closed and the pressure off than they are with protecting a future victim.
Under those circumstances, it is often easy for the police to convince themselves they found the right guy, especially if the guy happens to fit their ideas about what a "dangerous man" looks like -- it would be very soothing to the injured masculinity of these white men to act out the traditional scene of revenge against a black man who has, in their minds, affronted their manhood by interfering with their woman.
Their racism may further complicate whatever desire there is to prevent future violence -- I think in the minds of many cops, they truly think the streets are safer when even an innocent black man is behind bars.
9
@Marc As rational as your argument sounds, history is replete with incidences where individuals were knowingly setup and falsely convicted of crimes they did not commit for a plethora of reasons. As ridiculous as it sounds, it happens frequently. Else we wouldn't be having the conversation. I'm not saying that this guy is not the killer, but NY is as racist and corrupt as any city can possibly be, and when you throw in the fact that half of the evidence is a confession by a mentally challenged individual, the waters become even muddier.
5
The jury system is at serious risk of becoming a joke. Every slant now is racial and the police must all be racists.
I have served on a jury in Saint Louis where heinous crimes were perpetrated by a black male on a black female. The two black jurists would not convict for reasons of blaming the victim, to "we have to many black men in prison".
I do believe in the "beyond the shadow of a doubt" for the defendant, but in this case it appears the evidence is overwhelmingly clear and the jurors are using jury nullification to prove a point.
47
I wonder how much jurors are tainted these days by watching tv courtroom dramas and reading conspiracy theories on social media. If they see mendacity at every turn going in, how can the trial be fair?
Having said that, a couple quotes in the article make me cringe:
“Months before the murder, Lieutenant Russo testified, he had spotted Mr. Lewis “acting suspiciously” and walking slowly through Howard Beach, a predominantly white neighborhood.”
and:
“A resident, Angelo Guarino, 55, had called 911 in late May to say the same thing, telling a dispatcher, “He definitely doesn’t belong here.”
Uh oh.
I’ve never been on a jury, so I have no idea what goes on in a real (not movie or tv version) jury room. I like to think that jurors stick to the facts, but I don’t have a lot of faith that they do. When you have a case as radically fraught as this, and you throw in some DNA deniers, how can you get a just, fully considered verdict?
3
@Passion for Peaches
“ … a couple quotes in the article make me cringe”
Here is more information on the 911 call.
The NYT article titled "Case of Jogger’s Murder Hinges, in Part, on Questions Over a Police Stop” said, "A 911 caller had reported seeing a man in a track suit going in and out of yards with a crowbar — and said he had seen the man the day before, too.”
If I saw someone going in and out of yards with a crowbar, I would want to know who he was and what he was doing. If the person was wearing a track suit rather than something that identified him as a utility worker or a city official, I would be even more concerned, and would definitely call the police. I would expect the police to find and question the person.
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@ann, I agree that why you describe is suspicious behavior. It’s interesting — and worrisome — that the Times didn’t include that detail. I think the times often skews the reporting on racially loaded events.
9
@Passion for Peaches Your last sentence is the understatement of the week.
7
Jury nullification. Disgusting.
25
Lewis' low IQ and mental illness makes the confession very problematical. The investigating police made several mistakes. I can see how the jury might have had doubts.
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@K Henderson
Having served in two criminal jury trials and one grand jury I can also see why the jury would have many doubts.
2
@K Henderson So, if a perpetrator has a low IQ or/and mental illness, they should just be freed? You think a low IQ is grounds for dismissal or ? Is anyone convicted of a violent, random murder really ever in their right mind?
11
@K Henderson
He apparently had enough of an IQ and presence of mind to plot and stalk, then rape and murder - and try to cover his tracks after killing this helpless young woman.
14
The issue of "learning disabiity" is quite mitigating. The law should be changed to provide counsel to everyone accused of a felony to require that counsel be present for any questioning. Someone of limited ability may not understand their Miranda rights.
6
My heart goes out to the Vetrano family for this heinous crime.
As much as I want to bring her murderer to justice, several issues in this case removes the legal standard of beyond all reasonable doubt:
(1) the defendant is learning disabled, of which we have evidence given that "he appeared confused at times during the videotaped interview. He initially thought the prosecutor was his defense lawyer."
(2) he lived in East New York at the time of the crime and testified that "in a videotaped interview that he had attacked Ms. Vetrano because he was angry that his neighbors had been playing loud music." Really, who in their right mind is going to travel 3 miles to strangle a stranger because they're annoyed at their neighbors next door, especially a learning disabled individual?
(3) We need to carefully examine how the DNA evidence was collected near the time of crime and when the lab tests were done (who collected the sample and how, who *delivered* the sample and how); https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/05/nyregion/queens-jogger-trial.html?module=inline: "One of those jurors also questioned why DNA evidence had been handled by several officers before being turned over to a lab, and why Mr. Lewis’s DNA was found on Ms. Vetrano’s neck but not on her necklace."
(5) The fact that a law enforcement officer, Lieutentant Russo suggested that detectives talk to Mr. Lewis also presents the problematic confirmation bias.
Let's bring the perpetrator to justice, not one we "think" is.
32
@Lmca, I don’t know the street layout or topography of the neighborhoods, but three miles is not a big distance. If someone is angry and storms off on a walk to burn it off, he or she can cover three miles easily.
12
@Passion for Peaches: I know the topography of the neighborhood since I live in less than 2 miles down from where it happened. It's really out of his way for a learning disabled person.
2
What troubles me is that you think your analysis is sound, but it’s so remarkably flawed.
As a lawyer I have defended and prosecuted criminals and when you look at all of the evidence together, you have a better chance of being struck by lightning than this person being innocent.
So what if the DNA was handled by multiple officers? How in any way would that make his DNA appear under her fingernails? That’s hot how DNA works.
And he admitted to strangling her. That’s damning. You note that he’s disabled (true) but then question his motive. So he is perfectly disabled to give a false confession but not disabled enough to give an absurd motive? I’ve heard way worse. You really thread the needle.
12
Pity race has to play a role in guilty or innocent. But seems to me to be a slam dunk with all the evidence. I remember how race played a role in The acquittal of OJ. Unbelievable.
46
@J Clark, the Simpson acquittal is what made me lose my faith in the jury system. The trial was a stage show. It was a travesty.
5
@J Clark
IIRC, race was all over the place during the OJ trial, but in that court room, the prosecution flat out bungled the case and the judge let it happen. I don't know anyone who thought OJ was not guilty and yet there was no way that procedure could land him in jail.
1
A confession, DNA evidence, circumstantial evidence (the hand injury) - if this isn't enough to convict someone, I don't know what is. It tells you a lot about how poorly many police officers are behaving in America, when some jurors have such deep distrust of the police that they can't make the right call on a straight-forward case. It calls to mind the scandal of the OJ trial.
49
@gus The predator killed Katrina Vetrano, not the cops. This is NOT any LEO's fault.
9
@gus "It tells you a lot about how poorly many police officers are behaving in America, when some jurors have such deep distrust of the police that they can't make the right call on a straight-forward case. It calls to mind the scandal of the OJ trial."
I am not sure how this can be blamed on the police. If you want to blame anyone look at the media painting the narratives that blacks are targeted by the public and police. (As in a malicious statistical disparity between the racial groups)
7
This situation is the real price of police misconduct. Railroad enough people, and even good cases will be presumed to be frame-ups.
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@Frank O
The prosecutors had a good case. Why did they have to blow it and risk reversal with improper jury selection?
If the judge allowed the prosecutors to exclude potential jurors who had or knew someone with a negative experience with law enforcement, that alone should be grounds for reversal.
The jury foreman is a retired law enforcement officer.
It goes beyond racism. They're creating a pro-prosecution jury.
If prosecutors can get away with this, we might as well limit juries to white Republican landowners.
18
@Norman Who killed Katrina Vetrano? Was it a cop? Was it a prosecutor? Do you know what DNA is? Was a cop's DNA or a prosecutor's DNA found on her body? No, so put the blame where it belongs, instead of on people who try to protect public safety.
12
@malcolm do you mean Hear! Hear!
The suspect’s DNA was found under the victim’s fingernails and we’re still questioning his guilt?
It’s a frightening day for women.
103
@Factumpactum, I refer you to the OJ Simpson trial, where both female and male victims were not given full consideration. All (admiring, unfortunately) eyes were on the accused in that case.
3
Mr. Lewis's DNA under the fingernails of the murdered girl did not get there by both of them innocently "touching the same surface" at some point. Get real.
107
@Vern Castle
You're missing the point.
I think he's guilty. I think he's dangerous to society, and society should be protected from people like him. (But I've also seen a lot of cases where defendants seemed to be guilty and turned out to be innocent. So I could be wrong)
The question is, can you convict him legally? It shouldn't be that hard.
The worst abuse here is jury selection. It really is reasonable to demand a fair jury, not a predominantly white, pro-prosecution jury that includes a retired policeman.
If he's so obviously guilty, why not give him a fair trial?
20
@Norman This is another example of why I continue to argue for the elimination of "jury selection". A jury should be chosen at random from the pool of available jurors; and the only grounds for exclusion should be a close personal relationship with one of the participants in the trial (and that should be determined by the judge, not the attorneys).
7
@Norman No, sorry, but the murder of this innocent woman is the worst abuse here.
15
DNA evidence the defendant cannot account for, an unforced confession, downloaded images of the crime scene on his phone, a hand injury, searches about “second chances,” proximity to the crime, and a motive, and we need to debate whether the defendant’s arrest and prosecution are the result of police misconduct?
78
@Alex
We do indeed, due to a million prior investigations that were in fact corrupt. We need to be extra careful about scapegoating, about racism. He might in fact be guilty, or he might have been set up. I do not trust police in 2019 to not be racist, too many videos, and innocent men jailed.
17
@Alex DNA evidence can be planted
10
And yet there was no conviction the first time. So the state is relying on an old white jury to carry the case over the line. Just where is the systemic justice in excluding black male jurors? A conviction under the circumstances will be racism as usual.
9