May 2024: A
promising court ruling in February but NY Governor Hochul vetoed a bill in 2023 which would've been a pathway to an Actual Innocence hearing.
Unclear what the next steps are.
The
New York State Court of Appeals on Tuesday reversed a decision by a
lower appeals court that barred Jesse Friedman from gaining access to
his case files, nearly 30 years after the former Great Neck resident’s
guilty plea in a child sex abuse scandal. Click here to continue reading
Challenging wrongful convictions – A2878-A/S7548. Quote from above link: Sponsored
by Assembly Member Jeffrion Aubry and Myrie, this bill would have made
it easier for someone wrongfully convicted of a crime to have that
conviction overturned, even if that person pleaded guilty [From Perry: Jesse Friedman entered into a plea deal for a more lenient sentence, believing at the time he couldn't get a fair trial], by removing
procedural barriers to having new evidence heard by the court. In a veto
memo, Hochul said that she supports the intent of overturning wrongful
convictions and noted that she has approved numerous criminal justice
reforms since taking office as well as existing avenues for
post-conviction relief. But she said this bill is overly broad and would
“create an unjustifiable risk of flooding the courts with frivolous
claims.”
2022 News: update on "Establishes the actual innocence justice act"
2021-2022 Legislative Session: NY State Assembly Bill A98A - Passed the Assembly but ran out of time to pass the Senate. Likely re-introduced in 2022-2023
2018 Bad News:The
NY Court of Appeals case of People v. Tiger, held 5-2 that there is no
"actual innocence" cause of action for someone who has pled guilty,
effectively ending Friedman's 440.10 motion (in the absence of
legislation).
From the Dissenting Opinion by Judge Wilson, joined by Judge Rivera:
"Ms. Tiger [caregiver for "profoundly disabled ten-year-old girl"] is neither
the first nor last innocent person to plead guilty. Ms. Tiger's case
(based on facts as she summarizes them, without the benefit of an
evidentiary hearing) provides a compelling example. In brief, confronted
by Child Protective Services with horrifying photographs of the child's
skin blistering, she was: without the assistance of counsel; denied the
accompaniment of a representative of her employer who attempted to
attend; accused of "having boiled water and thrown it" on the child; and
told she was responsible for the skin grafts the child was then
undergoing. Ms. Tiger [*11] knew the bathwater was not
inappropriately hot, but nevertheless concluded she must have been
responsible. Faced with seven years in prison, she pleaded guilty after
her lawyer told her she could not afford to hire an expert and a guilty
plea could result in a suspended sentence. What
she did not then know was that the child was taking medication that
likely caused the blistering. Based on the sequence of events leading up
to the child's injuries, and her meeting with the CPS interviewer who
all but insisted that Ms. Tiger burned the child terribly, it is not
hard to imagine that a compassionate and attentive caregiver — which
other evidence in the record shows she was — could begin to believe that
she somehow made a mistake and was to blame."
2017 Bad News Fixed in 2024: The NY Court of Appeals ruled, as
to whether the DA must turn over every piece of evidence connected to
this case, in preparation for an eventual "Actual Innocence" hearing in
the Friedman case:
It's up to the
trial court to determine whether some witnesses expressly were
guaranteed confidentiality by prosecutors — or the circumstances of the
case are such that confidentiality "can be reasonably inferred" — and
their identifying information and statements can therefore be kept
secret. Source: Newsday
