Brooklyn Gets the Attention, But the Bronx Is the City's True Wrongful Conviction Capital

Albert Samaha

Wrongful convictions have been at the center of public discourse lately. Every few weeks, there's a headline about a new exoneration, some poor guy locked up for 20 years for a crime it turned out he did not commit. In 2013, 87 people were exonerated, the most in any year ever.

In New York City, an even nationally, Kings County has emerged as the poster boy for this wave of overturned convictions. Brooklyn, after all, has had the highest-profile faces at every layer: David Ranta, the innocent man who spent 23 years in prison; Louis Scarcella, the detective accused of fabricating confessions and coaching witnesses; Michael Vecchione, the prosecutor accused of hiding evidence of a defendant's innocence; Charles Hynes, the politically minded D.A. who seemed to turn a blind eye to the misconduct that led to who-knows-how-many convictions; and current Brooklyn D.A. Ken Thompson, who unseated Hynes by vowing to clean up the office and whose staff is reviewing nearly 100 questionable convictions, including 56 involving Scarcella.

It's enough to make an intelligent, well-read New Yorker think that Brooklyn is the city's wrongful conviction capital. False. The Bronx holds the title.

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2014/06/brooklyn_gets_attention_but_bronx_has_most_known_wrongful_convictions.php