Manhattan judges overturned the convictions Monday of two men who spent decades in prison for separate killings investigated by detectives in the same NYPD precinct in Harlem.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office agreed to drop the cases against Wayne Gardine, convicted of a 1994 fatal shooting in Harlem, and Jabar Walker, convicted of a 1998 double homicide, after re-investigating the two cases in partnership with defense attorneys from the Legal Aid Society and the Innocence Project. The men served a combined 54 years for crimes prosecutors now say they’re not convinced they committed.
“There’s a big problem among police and prosecutors and the system where nobody cares about the truth,” said Vanessa Potkin, Walker’s attorney and director of special litigation for the Innocence Project. “And once you’re convicted, people just fight to uphold the conviction.”
Gardine and Walker’s convictions were both overturned in part because prosecutors determined they did not believe witness accounts.
In Gardine’s case, one witness said he made up a story because he felt pressured by his boss, who was friends with the victim, according to his lawyers. In Walker’s case, a witness who testified that he heard Walker confess to the murders later recanted, saying he had been pressured by police officers, according to a filing by prosecutors.
The cases highlighted the consequences of corruption in the 1990s at 30th Precinct station house in Harlem, which was nicknamed the “Dirty 30.”
Gardine’s case was overseen by a detective at the precinct who was later convicted of drug trafficking conspiracy and served eight years in prison, according to the Legal Aid Society.
A mayoral commission tasked with investigating police corruption in the 1990s found officers in the precinct regularly conducted illegal searches and stole money and drugs, among other wrongdoing. Dozens of police were arrested.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg launched a Post-Conviction Justice Unit to investigate potentially wrongful convictions after he took office last year. That has resulted in more than 500 vacated cases, mostly connected to police accused of misconduct. The district attorney’s office said five separate convictions that were not part of those mass dismissals have been overturned, with 18 other cases pending.
Other district attorneys in the city have created similar units to reexamine old cases. Overturned convictions often result in multimillion-dollar payouts. Gardine and Walker’s legal teams had no immediate information on whether they planned to sue over their wrongful convictions.
Gardine, 49, attended the hearing clearing his name via video. He is being held in immigration detention while he fights deportation to his native Jamaica. The immigration proceeding began after he served about 28 years in prison.
“They don’t have to let him out,” Lou Fox, a staff attorney in the Legal Aid Society’s Wrongful Conviction Unit, said in an interview last week. “That’s the really horrible, bittersweet part of this for him.”
Walker was serving a sentence of 25 years to life.
When Judge Miriam Best granted the request to vacate his conviction, Walker smiled at his family in the gallery as they clapped.
“God bless,” Walker said to prosecutors.
His family cheered as he hugged them and posed for photos outside the courthouse.
“I’m trying to process it right now,” Walker said. “It feels real good to be out.”
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