{"id":116359,"date":"2020-11-20T02:04:35","date_gmt":"2020-11-19T23:04:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/army-vets-murder-conviction-overturned-after-25-year-incarceration\/"},"modified":"2020-11-20T02:04:35","modified_gmt":"2020-11-19T23:04:35","slug":"army-vets-murder-conviction-overturned-after-25-year-incarceration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/army-vets-murder-conviction-overturned-after-25-year-incarceration\/","title":{"rendered":"#Army vet’s murder conviction overturned after 25-year incarceration"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Army vet’s murder conviction overturned after 25-year incarceration<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n A Queens judge Thursday overturned the murder conviction of an Army veteran and USPS mailman who spent 25 years behind bars for a crime he didn\u2019t commit.<\/p>\n

\u201dI\u2019m very, very happ<\/a>y today because I never thought this would happen \u2014 although I hoped and wished it would,\u201d Ernest \u201cJaythan\u201d Kendrick, 62, told the court in a soft-spoken voice shortly before he stepped out of Queens Supreme Court as a free man.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one really understands what it is to be in prison when you\u2019re innocent. You know you\u2019re innocent and you\u2019re behind that wall. Civilization is not there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Justice Joseph Zayas apologized to Kendrick.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe failed you,\u201d he said, before granting the motion to overturn the verdict submitted jointly by Queens DA Melinda Katz, who was present for the proceeding.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hereby vacate your conviction and dismiss the indictment,\u201d said the jurist, prompting subdued applause from the gallery.<\/p>\n

A jury found Kendrick guilty of fatally stabbing a 70-year-old woman in the back and snatching her purse on the grounds of the Ravenswood Houses in 1994. The conviction was based primarily on the eyewitness testimony of a 10-year-old boy.<\/p>\n

The child witnessed the slaying from the third-floor window of his apartment more than 100 feet away, according to Susan Freidman of the Innocence Project, who represents Kendrick.<\/p>\n

The boy offered a vague description of the assailant as a \u201cblack man in his 30s wearing a black jacket,\u201d Freidman told the court.<\/p>\n

\"Ernest
Ernest Kendrick<\/span>Brigitte Stelzer<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hours later, Kendrick was detained after police spotted him walking in his Long Island City neighborhood because he loosely fit the suspect\u2019s description. He fully cooperated with police, allowing them to search his apartment, which he shared with a woman, where they found a black purse on top of a television.<\/p>\n

The youngster initially identified another man in a lineup before changing his selection to Kendrick, officials said.<\/p>\n

Police later obtained a statement from a second witness who said he saw Kendrick fleeing the scene with a black purse under his arm. The second witness had two serious pending criminal cases and every incentive to provide testimony the police were seeking to nail Kendrick, Freidman said.<\/p>\n

After Katz took office, she founded the Conviction Integrity Unit, which investigated Kendrick\u2019s case.<\/p>\n

Using technology<\/a> that didn\u2019t exist at the time of the crime, the purse was tested for the victim\u2019s DNA and none was found. Four new witnesses came forward who contradicted the second witness\u2019 statement implicating Kendrick, Katz told the court on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The young boy, who is now an adult, has since recanted, admitting that he wasn\u2019t able to see the perpetrator clearly enough to identify him.<\/p>\n

\u201cRacial profiling and unduly suggestive identification procedures and a lack of police accountability have all contributed to the scores of wrongful convictions in this country,\u201d Freidman lamented in court. \u201cIt is shocking to see how easy it is to obtain a conviction and to send someone to prison for the rest of their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ernest
Ernest Kendrick<\/span>Brigitte Stelzer<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WilmerHale attorney Ross Firsenbaum, who helped the Innocence Project with Kendrick\u2019s wrongful conviction case for free, blasted the prior Queens DA, Richard Brown, for refusing to consider the new evidence and insisting on Kendrick\u2019s guilt. Brown passed away last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cToo many police and prosecutors remain focused on securing and maintaining convictions at all costs,\u201d he said, lauding Katz\u2019s office for taking a different approach.<\/p>\n

Kendrick said he was ecstatic to be a free man again. \u201cIt really feels incredible,\u201d he said. His immedia<\/a>te priority is a good meal. \u201cShrimp, flounder, lobster, crab, any of that,\u201d he said of tonight\u2019s menu. In the longterm, he plans to travel<\/a> and learn the latest technology. \u201cWhen I went into prison, it was beepers and pagers,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n

He had one note of caution for others who find themselves in a similar position. \u201cI would tell them to ask for a lawyer, don\u2019t say one word,\u201d he said. \u201cI trusted them, I trusted the police, I trusted they\u2019d do the right thing and see that I was innocent. That was my mistake.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Army vet’s murder conviction overturned after 25-year incarceration” A Queens judge Thursday overturned the murder conviction of an Army veteran and USPS mailman who spent 25 years behind bars for a crime he didn\u2019t commit. \u201dI\u2019m very, very happy today because I never thought this would happen \u2014 although I hoped and wished it would,\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":116360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/11\/ernest-kendrick-09.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[80599,80797,70229,11247,70580,80798],"class_list":["post-116359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-11-19-20","tag-innocence-project","tag-murder","tag-queens","tag-veterans","tag-wrongful-convictions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}