Today Governor Hochul is commuting the sentence of our firm’s pro bono client Jermaine Swaby. Jermaine has served 22 1/2 years in prison for his 2002 Kings County murder conviction. He will now be eligible for release to parole supervision this November, two years earlier than he would have been eligible under his original sentence of 25 years […]
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Law firm principal Joel B. Rudin is vice chair of the amicus committee of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (“NACDL”). Today, Mr. Rudin filed an amicus, or “friend of the court,” brief, on behalf of the NACDL and numerous other defense lawyer organizations, to be considered by the full, or en banc, U.S. […]
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A State Supreme Court Justice today ordered a hearing into allegations that our firm made in a post-judgment or “440” motion to vacate our client’s murder conviction because of an inappropriate, secret meeting between another judge’s law clerk and “local” counsel for our client, Gregory Thayer, in Ulster County, New York. During the meeting, our […]
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Law360 reports on our firm’s motion seeking a new trial for our client Gregory Thayer. Mr. Thayer was convicted of manslaughter earlier this year at a bench trial in Ulster County, New York. After the conviction, his principal defense attorney, Robert Gottlieb, discovered that an improper, secret communication had occurred between the judge’s law clerk and Mr. Thayer’s […]
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Firm principal Joel Rudin is quoted in a lengthy New York Times article reporting on how New York has become “a national hotbed of exoneration” of wrongfully convicted men. Commenting on the remarkable City Council primary victory by Yusef Salaam, one of the members of the wrongfully convicted Central Park Five, Mr. Rudin notes that […]
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Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Dena Douglas has dismissed a decades-old murder charge against our client Donnell Perkins. As we noted in a previous post, in January, Justice Douglas overturned Donnell’s 22-year-old murder conviction after the firm’s seven-year battle for justice for Donnell culminated in a 440 hearing at which we established that the single eyewitness […]
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We are making available on our website the litigation materials from Fraser v. City of New York et al., No. 20-cv-04926 (S.D.N.Y.)—including previously confidential NYPD training materials, the trial transcript, and other exhibits and depositions. As discussed in previous postings here, and in coverage by Law360 (gated) and ProPublica, in Fraser, our firm won a $1,925,000 jury verdict against the City of New […]
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The New York Daily News reports that Mayor Eric Adams has appointed Jabbar Collins, a former client and employee of our law firm, to sit on the New York City Commission to Combat Police Corruption, which oversees the NYPD. A noted “jailhouse lawyer,” Jabbar was in prison for murder when he uncovered evidence that proved that prosecutors had illegally coerced […]
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Using firm client Jawaun Fraser’s recent trial victory as a case study, ProPublica published an article today exposing how the New York City Law Department’s aggressive approach to litigating civil rights cases prevents police reform, costs New York taxpayers millions of dollars, and delays justice for victims of police misconduct. Mr. Fraser recovered $1.5 million in […]
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Law360 reported in depth on the firm’s win at trial against the City of New York and three NYPD detectives who caused the wrongful conviction of firm client Jawaun Fraser. The article describes the violations of Mr. Fraser’s constitutional rights found by the jury, including evidence fabrication, Brady violations, and the City’s unlawful disclosure policy […]
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