0:05

Hey listeners, I'm Steve Fishman and

0:07

I'm Dax Devlin Ross.

0:09

Welcome to another fantastic

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bonus episode of The Burden.

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Before we start, remember that subscribers

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get more exclusive and add

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Say you know Dax or Steve for the special

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exclusive price of two ninety

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nine a.

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Month, Dax, you

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could sell me anything. Today's

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bonus is a little bit different than

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the ones we usually do. Today we

0:40

want to make a case. We want

0:42

to make a case for an investigation, and

0:44

first we're going to make our case to you and

0:47

our listeners. We hope by the end you'll

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agree something needs to be done.

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By the way, if you have any thoughts on

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this, or maybe you have some information,

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call us one eight three three

1:00

eight Burden.

1:04

So let's start with what we know. Louis

1:06

Scarcela is now regarded as

1:09

a disgrace detective, the

1:11

most notorious ex detective in

1:14

New York. Twenty one cases

1:17

Louis helped investigate have

1:19

been overturned.

1:21

Today we're going to focus on the assistant

1:23

district attorneys, the eightyas in

1:26

the Brooklyn District Attorney's office. These

1:28

are the lawyers who prosecuted those

1:30

twenty one wrongful convictions.

1:33

They had the power, the authority,

1:35

the law degrees, but when it

1:37

comes to wrongful convictions, they

1:40

have often skated away free

1:43

for one thing. By law, the

1:45

DA has immunity. This means

1:47

someone who's been wrongfully convicted cannot

1:50

sue the DA. He can sue the cops.

1:53

And Louis cases have cost the taxpayer

1:55

over one hundred million dollars.

1:58

But remember every wrongful

2:01

conviction had an ADA presiding

2:04

over it. The current DA's conviction

2:06

review unit has overturned lots

2:09

of Scarcelli's cases, and we

2:11

need to give current DA Eric Gonzalez

2:14

credit. He has made writing

2:16

wrongful convictions a cause.

2:19

Still even today, the

2:21

reports overturning Scarcella cases

2:23

often blame him by name. His flawed

2:26

work explained in detail. But

2:28

the prosecutors, the adas

2:30

who supposedly vetted his investigations,

2:33

endorsed his testimony, tried

2:35

the cases, put witnesses on

2:37

the stand, told the jury what to believe.

2:40

They get anonymity for the most

2:42

part, like you know, it's

2:44

a professional courtesy.

2:47

And yet one of Scarcella's

2:49

ada's had three convictions

2:51

overturned another four.

2:55

Any consequences to their career, Steve.

2:58

Yeah, they rose in the ranks,

3:01

all right, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

3:04

To lead the research, we taped to distinguished

3:06

Brooklyn based journalist named Ted

3:08

Ham.

3:10

So, Ted, can you introduce yourself?

3:13

Sure?

3:13

My name is Theodore Ham.

3:16

I prefer to go by Ted and

3:19

I I'm the chair of journalism

3:22

at Saint Joseph's University in

3:24

Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, and

3:27

I've written extensively about

3:30

Scarcella cases for The Independent

3:32

India with a Y.

3:34

Ted's nickname is the Hammer, so

3:36

it comes from Ham, your Land's name exactly,

3:39

but it's adopted because.

3:43

Everything looks like a nail.

3:47

So, Ted, how'd you first get interested in Scarseller?

3:51

I first wrote about him in

3:53

twenty seventeen for

3:55

The Daily Beast, and then I've since

3:58

followed his cases, and on

4:00

a few occasions over the last several

4:02

years, I've been the only reporter in

4:04

the courtroom covering some of the cases.

4:07

And if I'm the only one there, I know that it's

4:09

not a case they want to call attention to.

4:12

So fair to say that you are the

4:14

Scarcella reporter.

4:16

In Brooklyn I'm not going to dispute

4:18

that, but.

4:20

You're the guy who's been at it longest, been

4:22

at it the most.

4:25

Over the last six

4:28

or seven years. Yeah, I would say so.

4:31

And by the way, Scarcella called

4:33

me, he said, who's

4:35

this guy ted Ham who's stalking

4:37

me? I would say

4:39

that from Scarcella's point of view, no

4:42

love lost. He sees ted Ham

4:45

the Hammer as an antagonist.

4:49

Which makes today's episode interesting because

4:51

I'd say that the Hammer's investigation

4:53

supports some of Scarcella's

4:56

basic contentions. Remember,

4:59

Scarcelo loves to point out that he

5:01

didn't act alone. His cases

5:03

had to sign off of the DA's office.

5:07

So Steve approached me in January

5:10

and raised this question, which is

5:12

you would think at some point the

5:14

ada's who handled these cases,

5:17

somebody would say, okay, well, we're reviewing

5:20

Scarcella's cases, but maybe

5:22

the fact that they handled Scarcella's cases would

5:24

lead them to examine

5:26

these ada's cases.

5:28

Right.

5:29

You did the math, you did the research. You came

5:31

up with twenty one convictions

5:33

of Scarcella related

5:35

cases that have been overturned,

5:38

huge number. We know that

5:40

that's resulted in more than one hundred million

5:43

dollars being dolled out of tax

5:45

payer money and settlements, and over.

5:47

Four hundred years of incarceration wrongful

5:49

incarceration.

5:50

So how do you go about finding out if

5:53

an Ada has had other convictions

5:55

deemed wrongful?

5:57

Well, the people

5:59

who who are familiar with the cases,

6:01

obviously are the defendant,

6:04

who typically has done this

6:06

extensive amount of research while they were in prison

6:09

on their case. And then there's

6:12

their appellate lawyers who often

6:15

know other cases from their research

6:18

and knowing other lawyers working on these cases,

6:20

and so on, And then there's

6:22

always the newspapers. The prosecutors'

6:25

names do turn up

6:27

occasionally, but the DA's

6:29

office never wants to disclose

6:32

the name of the prosecutor, so they issue

6:35

long reports. Even when they

6:37

explain that the prosecutors has

6:39

committed misconduct, they end

6:41

up saying that misconduct was nothing

6:43

compared to what Scarcela did. And

6:46

you know, they're happy to blame the cop. They're happy to

6:48

name the cops scarcel and

6:50

others, but almost always

6:53

they do not name the.

6:54

Prosecutor, protecting their

6:56

own or what.

6:58

The view is that they don't

7:01

want to hurt morale,

7:03

they don't want to scare off other prosecutors

7:06

from coming to the office thinking they're going to be

7:08

thrown under the bus or whatever you want to call it.

7:11

So, just to be clear, you

7:14

wrongfully convicted guys, send them to jail for

7:16

decades, and then the DA's office is worried

7:18

about your morale.

7:21

Ted, Is, I look at your research. Here's one

7:24

thing that jumps out at me. Twenty

7:26

one scar Seller cases have been

7:28

overturned. Of the

7:30

ada's who helped prosecute

7:32

those cases, nine of

7:35

them have had another fourteen convictions

7:37

overturned that were not scar

7:40

Seller cases. And that's just what

7:42

you know by getting on the phone with

7:44

people, right, Ted, It's not exhaustive.

7:47

Now, you would need to have

7:49

the personnel files I guess of the

7:51

DA's office, and they're never going to turn those over.

7:54

So when you go through these twenty

7:56

one cases, what's

7:59

jumping out at you in terms of the involvement

8:02

of the assistant district

8:04

attorneys.

8:05

Scarcela himself, not

8:07

to defend him, but just to explain what his position

8:10

is is that he could not make any

8:12

arrest and neither could any Brooklyn detective

8:15

without approval of the

8:17

die's office.

8:20

Here's Louis in his own words, I

8:22

brought every case the Brooklyn

8:25

District Attorney's office, Teresa

8:27

Gomez, all the witnesses, they were.

8:29

Vetted, and they all went along

8:32

with my arrest They all

8:34

went along with my arrests,

8:36

and they convicted them.

8:39

So fair to say, I guess that when Scarcella

8:41

says that it was the job of the district

8:44

attorney to vet and evaluate

8:46

the cases, that's accurate.

8:49

Right, But that doesn't excuse

8:52

any misconduct on his part for

8:54

just rounding someone up and bringing them in

8:56

and figuring out how they can charge that person.

8:59

Yeah, but I I don't see

9:01

how a prosecutor could say,

9:04

oh my god, I was hoodwinked by this

9:06

detective.

9:07

Agree.

9:08

That seems to be what their position

9:10

is, that, oh he fooled us. Well,

9:13

that's shame on you, right,

9:15

because how many times can they say that when

9:17

they went forward with a bad case. Dozens

9:20

upon dozens of times, not just Scarcela.

9:25

Let's get to this token booth case. This

9:27

is a colossal

9:30

headline grabbing, awful

9:32

murder. There's a guy

9:35

who's a token booth clerk, Harry

9:37

Kaufman. Harry Kaufman. Somebody

9:42

goes up to that little slot

9:44

in the front of the token booth, sprays

9:47

in a flammable liquid. What

9:50

is it lighter fluid?

9:51

I think something to that effect.

9:53

And then lights a

9:55

match and creates an explosion

9:58

inside the booth. This

10:01

guy, Harry Kauffman, who's the token booth

10:03

clerk, hangs on.

10:06

He's got burns all over his body.

10:08

He hangs on for two weeks and

10:10

finally dies in the burnyard. This

10:13

is a case of such incredible

10:17

sadism that it

10:19

just grabs the attention, grabs

10:21

the headlines. There is an absolute

10:23

drum beat to find the person

10:26

guilty, person or person.

10:28

Bob Dole, who was the front runner

10:30

for the nineteen ninety six Republican nomination,

10:34

used this as an example of urban

10:37

insanity, crime out of control.

10:42

And so Luis Scarcella steps

10:45

into this case as he does

10:47

with a number of high profile cases, and

10:49

there's all kinds of pressure.

10:52

Scarcella and a

10:54

handful of other detectives involved, because there were

10:56

many They got

10:58

confessions from all three

11:00

of the suspects.

11:02

Louis told us how he got one of the confessions,

11:05

and it's pure Louis as background.

11:08

Louie's wife had a terrible kitchen accident

11:10

and had burns up and down her body.

11:13

She too had been in the burn unit.

11:16

I started talking to him about

11:18

mister Kaufman was in the burn unit. Told

11:21

him my wife was in the burn unit. Told

11:25

him how she suffered, told

11:27

him how mister Kaufman suffered.

11:30

I hit a core.

11:32

I hit a core. Said I'll

11:35

tell you if

11:37

I can visit my girlfriend.

11:40

We had

11:42

conjugal visits. And

11:45

anybody tell you knows a liar. Okay,

11:49

we even had them in the Brooklyn d A's office.

11:51

I was able to get

11:54

the confession.

11:56

And they indicted and prosecuted

11:58

and sent three guys away for seventy five

12:00

years. And they turned out that they were all wrong

12:02

right, None of the evidence that they

12:04

were using against the three

12:06

of them held up. One witness

12:09

was consorting with her

12:12

partner in a car.

12:15

Crime happened after midnight, and

12:17

so they were having sex in the car,

12:19

and then she claims that she saw two

12:22

of the three right.

12:23

But initially this witness had said

12:25

it was someone else, and then she changed

12:28

her story, so her credibility

12:30

wasn't quished.

12:31

And then I went One defendant called nine

12:34

one one to report the token

12:36

booth blaze. And then

12:38

after the investigations proceeding, they

12:40

bring him to the precinct, and

12:43

by the time he leaves the precinct he's confessed

12:45

to the crime. What motive would you have to call

12:48

nine one one to report a blaze that

12:50

he had in fact had started. That's just ridiculous.

12:54

You're saying that the assistant district

12:56

attorneys in this case mishandled

12:59

it.

13:00

Right, Scarcella did not prosecute

13:04

these three guys, right.

13:06

That's right. Three eighty as prosecuted

13:09

it.

13:09

It was their obligation to weigh

13:12

Scarcella's and the other

13:14

detectives' confessions versus

13:17

other evidence that they had

13:19

in the case and to say, well, this

13:22

may or may not add up.

13:24

So what did the report by the Conviction Review

13:26

say?

13:27

And the reports by the cru

13:30

that came out almost three decades later,

13:32

they raised serious questions about

13:34

the trial summation before the jury,

13:37

saying that they were saying things

13:39

that were stretching the evidence.

13:41

And so there is some acknowledgment in those

13:44

reports that there was wrongdoing

13:46

by the prosecutors.

13:48

The reports point out the bad conduct,

13:51

but almost always failed

13:53

to use the names of the prosecutors.

13:56

When you say that prosecutors went

13:59

beyond the evidence in their summations.

14:01

Are we basically saying that they lied to

14:04

the jury.

14:04

They were distorting the

14:07

evidence, right, So I mean,

14:09

whether you want to call that lies

14:11

or not?

14:12

And what happened to those three eighty

14:14

as.

14:16

Once judge another moved to a white

14:18

shoe law firm in Manhattan, and

14:20

then the third who presided over

14:22

at least one other wrongful

14:24

conviction. One other that we could find

14:28

is a current member of the Brooklyn District

14:30

Attorney's executive team.

14:37

I wanted to get to two of the cases

14:39

that we focused on in the series.

14:42

I know you've done some research on Anne Gutman.

14:45

Anne Gutman was the prosecutor in

14:47

the Derek Hamilton case that was eventually

14:50

overturned.

14:51

We dig into this case in episode nine of

14:53

The Burden. Remember that's where

14:55

we took the trip to the North Carolina Woods,

14:57

chatted with the witness who first told us she

15:00

was someone else before revealing herself

15:02

to us.

15:04

This case against Derek, whatever

15:06

you believe about his innocence or guilt,

15:09

the evidence was not there to convict

15:12

and we really show

15:15

that the ballistics evidence and the

15:17

forensic evidence contradicts

15:21

the report of the main witness.

15:24

What does Anne Gutman do to overcome

15:27

that small problem.

15:30

She essentially lies to the jury.

15:33

She says, it's not black, it's

15:36

white. The forensics

15:39

supports, the ballistics supports

15:42

our version of the story, when in fact

15:44

it just the opposite.

15:47

So what happens is the conviction review

15:49

unit looks

15:51

at that closely. They

15:54

excoriated her.

15:56

We got someone to review the report for

15:58

us. It says she quote

16:01

fell far short of the prosecutor's obligation

16:03

to do justice in quote and that

16:06

she quote significantly misled

16:08

the jury end quote.

16:14

Just like in the Token Booth case. Right, So,

16:16

just to keep a tally, so far, we

16:19

have two different cases in which prosecutors

16:21

misled the jury. By

16:23

the way, in the report available

16:25

to the public, the criticism

16:27

of Anne Gutman was left out.

16:30

Apparently the district attorney didn't

16:33

want to throw one of their own

16:35

under the bus. But we

16:37

know that the full report takes her to

16:39

task, not scar sell It. It takes

16:42

the assistant district attorney to task

16:45

for not only mishandling the case, but

16:47

really for, in a larger

16:49

sense, failing to do justice.

16:52

And what's interesting to me, Ted is that now

16:54

that You've looked at Anne Gutman, You've

16:56

been able to find that this is not an

16:59

isolated incident.

17:01

Correct.

17:01

So, Anne Gutman in

17:05

nineteen ninety two ninety three handled

17:08

the case of Everton

17:10

Wagstaff and Reginald Connor,

17:13

who were accused

17:15

of a kidnapping and murder

17:18

of a sixteen year old girl. But

17:20

the judge tossed the

17:23

murder charge because there was a lack of

17:25

evidence, but they went forward with

17:27

the kidnapping charge. Gutman's

17:29

case, she was basing it

17:32

on the word of a heroin addicted sex worker

17:34

named Runilda Capella.

17:37

Remember that Teresa Gomez was Scarcella's

17:40

go to witness. She was addicted to Kraken,

17:42

a sometimes sex worker who helped the DA

17:45

in six s Garcela cases where

17:47

she claimed to be an eyewitness to

17:49

a.

17:49

Murder that seemed like a preposterous

17:52

number, right. Runilda Capella

17:54

was said to have witnessed many more

17:56

crimes than that.

18:01

Basically, what happened, at

18:04

least during the trial was that Capella

18:06

was kept in a locked hospital ward for

18:09

heroin withdrawal.

18:11

It was later reported that she'd gotten cold

18:13

feet about testifying, so

18:16

the DA arrested her and held

18:19

her.

18:19

For three days prior to the trial to

18:21

make sure she'd be there to testify

18:24

in court. They get to twelve

18:26

to twenty three years. But then

18:29

there's a hearing in twenty

18:31

ten, I think it was, in which

18:34

it's revealed the cops had used Capella

18:36

as a witness fifteen to twenty times.

18:39

But Gutman did not disclose that right. So

18:42

Gutman did not tell the defense

18:44

for those two defendants that

18:47

this person has this track.

18:48

Record, and under the rules, a prosecutor

18:50

cannot hide evidence that favors the defendant

18:54

that's considered rigging the

18:56

game.

18:57

Totally preposterous case against

18:59

these guys based on this really faulty

19:02

witness. But then it went to the appellate

19:04

Division and the appel Division dismissed

19:07

the indictment. They just said, this case is a

19:09

bad case from the jump, and

19:12

we're tossing the conviction and also tossing

19:14

the indictment. So it was a forceful

19:16

statement by the appellate Division about

19:18

Gutman's case.

19:20

Right.

19:20

That happens in twenty fifteen,

19:23

the same year that Derek

19:25

Hamilton's case is reversed by the CIRAU.

19:28

Right, the Appellate Court specifically

19:31

challenged the credibility of Capella

19:33

the key I witness.

19:35

So Gutman's handiwork

19:38

is exposed in two different cases

19:41

involving three different convictions

19:44

in twenty fifteen, and what happens.

19:47

Gutman remains the head.

19:49

Of the DA's Early

19:51

Case Assessment BUA through

19:54

twenty nineteen or so.

19:56

This brune Hilda Saturnay, Brunilda,

19:59

brun Nilda. So you're saying

20:01

she's used a dozen.

20:03

Timesteen to twenty times.

20:05

And the DA obviously knew that

20:08

she was a repeat witness

20:11

and a terrible drug addict.

20:14

Correct.

20:15

It makes you wonder if there were others

20:18

out there who could put them to shame.

20:25

So would you say pattern in practice

20:27

of using known

20:30

unreliable witnesses to

20:32

convict people.

20:34

It certainly looks like one, a

20:36

pattern for sure.

20:37

And has anybody ever picked

20:39

out that pattern and said, we need

20:42

to look at all fifteen or twenty of

20:44

Brunilda cases.

20:47

Not that I know them.

20:49

Remember that the District Attorneys cru

20:52

looked at all of Teresa Gomez's

20:54

cases and moved to overturn

20:57

four of the six of them based

20:59

on Gomez's lack of credibility.

21:02

So they looked at Scarcella's

21:05

witness, but as far as we know,

21:07

they did not look at the much more

21:09

prolific witness, Brunilda,

21:12

the one favored by the

21:14

Adas. And I want

21:16

to tell you about one more example

21:19

of using an unreliable witness,

21:22

another one we stumbled onto.

21:25

This one involves an Ada named

21:27

Ken Towb who was head of the

21:30

DA's homicide Bureau for some years.

21:32

He was a prosecutor connected to one

21:35

of the overturned Scarcella convictions

21:37

that was the token Booth case. And

21:41

just fyi, he's been quoted

21:43

by a defense attorney as saying, you

21:46

can't let the truth get in the way

21:48

of justice. Consider

21:51

that for a moment. Anyway,

21:53

What did he do that relates to unreliable

21:57

witnesses?

21:58

I love this one. Tal brought

22:01

into the case of Snitch, a professional

22:03

snitch who was so used to helping

22:05

the DA that he kept Tob's phone

22:08

number in a bible.

22:09

He carried with him.

22:10

A guy who seemed to overhear a lot

22:13

of incriminating conversations that

22:15

proved really useful to the DA and,

22:17

as one might imagine, to him as well. In

22:20

exchange for testifying he

22:22

was seeking help with his sentences.

22:25

Shabaz was so unreliable so

22:27

often that eventually a judge banned

22:30

him from contacting any law enforcement

22:32

unless it was about his own crimes.

22:35

Can it really be a coincidence that, even

22:38

just anecdotally, almost

22:40

by chance, we've come across three witnesses

22:43

who were used by the DA over

22:45

and over and over again, three

22:48

witnesses who were found to be unreliable

22:52

and who claimed to have knowledge of something like

22:54

forty felonies.

22:56

One would ask, what the hell

22:58

was going on chance?

23:00

We're noting a pattern here? One

23:03

witness case is using an extremely

23:06

unreliable witness.

23:08

I found out from someone

23:10

who worked in the cru

23:13

an investigator actually involved in some of these

23:15

early cases that got overturned,

23:18

and she said they never looked

23:22

at it in that light, right, even though she

23:24

had some she saw

23:27

some of the prosecutors with multiple

23:30

reversals, she said, they never saw a pattern. So

23:33

you know, if they were looking for

23:35

a pattern, they mund they may have found it.

23:37

If they're not looking for a pattern, you can say there is no pattern.

23:41

I can tell you what the pattern is, using

23:43

the unreliable witnesses again

23:46

and again and again My

23:49

question to you is, why the hell's

23:51

the DA not done it? Why do that

23:53

in Scarcella cases but

23:56

not where essentially

23:58

the power exists.

24:00

Because that shows their culpability

24:02

the das.

24:03

So you're saying the DA's protecting its own.

24:07

They would say, are we really going to

24:09

initiate the process ourselves? Are we going

24:11

to acknowledge that we've done X

24:13

number of wrongful convictions? But I don't think they're

24:15

going to pursue that, right. I mean they should,

24:18

they could, and they should, but I don't think

24:20

they will.

24:21

Interesting. I think you brought

24:23

a couple other examples.

24:26

In twenty seventeen, there were a

24:28

couple of different exoneration

24:30

cases, and one of those

24:33

involved the case of Jabbar

24:35

Washington.

24:37

This was a Scarcella case.

24:38

The prosecutor in that case was

24:41

Kyle Reeves. And twenty

24:43

twenty one, a Brooklyn

24:45

judge reversed a Brooklyn

24:48

case that Reeves had handled, and

24:50

that in doing so, God

24:52

criticized Reeves for his quote

24:55

blatantly intentional misstatements

24:58

to the jury. Oh clearly

25:00

stated that Reeves us

25:03

distorting the evidence, which

25:05

he apparently had

25:07

done back in the Jabbar

25:10

Washington case.

25:11

So we've now heard three cases

25:13

of ada's lying or

25:16

at best exaggerating the facts

25:18

to the jury. And remember this

25:21

is without any comprehensive

25:24

database.

25:25

It's misleading the jury. Another

25:27

pattern worth investigating.

25:29

Let's read the statement from the current DA's

25:32

communications person. This

25:34

is something he gave to Ted quote.

25:37

Public shaming and blaming individuals

25:39

as opposed to systemic issues are

25:42

not part of the objective when the office

25:44

reviews past cases.

25:46

I find it interesting that they decided to characterize

25:48

it as shaming and blaming rather than what

25:51

it otherwise could be considered, is accountability.

25:54

Ted, so you've looked at the Brooklyn

25:56

DA very closely. What's

25:59

your judgement and about their approach

26:01

to doing justice?

26:04

The word corrupt gets thrown around by

26:07

any means necessary. But are they

26:10

good guys? I want you to be the

26:13

hammer.

26:17

All right.

26:18

So, if you're a

26:20

liberal, typically

26:23

you would see good people in

26:25

bad situations trying to do their

26:27

best. But I don't

26:30

view it from that lens. I'm more of

26:32

a leftist, and so I

26:34

see a bad system that produces bad

26:38

actions. I don't judge them

26:40

necessarily as bad people, but they did

26:42

bad things. I would

26:45

like to think that I uncovered some uncomfortable

26:49

truths about what these prosecutors

26:52

have done. Certainly the name should be attached

26:54

to these wrongful convictions. I'm

26:56

not saying I'm damning

26:58

them for anity, but this

27:01

is a fact that they did take away decades

27:04

of people's lives. So I think

27:07

if they can't face any real consequences,

27:09

their work needs to be acknowledged.

27:12

Because many of these prosecutors

27:15

went on to successful careers

27:18

and in some cases they kept prosecuting

27:20

people wrongfully.

27:22

Fair to say that your investigation

27:24

has shown that there is no accountability.

27:27

Yeah, I don't think there's You can't point

27:29

to anything that any consequence

27:31

that any prosecutor has experienced

27:34

that amounts

27:37

to accountability.

27:38

Right, So, no matter how many

27:40

wrongful convictions you can show

27:42

that somebody is that a prosecutor

27:45

is responsible for, there's been no

27:47

consequence to their career

27:50

in any way.

27:51

Not that we know of publicly.

27:54

Those kinds of things could have happened. They

27:56

just don't want to call attention to it. So we

27:58

don't know if they move people around

28:00

or move them, moved them out of the office,

28:03

and and so on, you know, so we do

28:05

the personnel matters are internal

28:07

things generally, and so we don't.

28:09

We don't always know, okay, but in

28:11

the Scarcella cases that we've been able

28:13

to that you've been able to look at no

28:17

consequences to any assistant.

28:18

District attorney, not that I can trace.

28:21

And some have gone on to what kind of offices.

28:24

Well, we have at least a few judges in

28:27

uh Nassau County, in Manhattan

28:29

Criminal Court and

28:33

Nasau DA. Kathleen Rice went

28:35

onto the House of Representatives for four terms from

28:38

a long island and

28:40

many have gone on to successful lucrative

28:43

careers in private practice and

28:46

on down the line.

28:48

So not to say

28:50

that crime pays, but it would seem

28:52

that cutting corners

28:55

in prosecution.

28:57

Pays in

29:00

in terms of gaining the convictions.

29:02

Yes, you know, that's what their

29:04

assignment was, and they got the convictions.

29:07

And propelling their own careers.

29:09

Correct.

29:13

Don't you think it's time to look inside investigate

29:16

patterns of relying on bad when its is

29:18

lying to jurys. Isn't

29:20

it time to investigate what that meant

29:22

to people's lives?

29:24

We asked the Brooklyn District Attorney for a comment

29:27

and they gave us a statement. They said

29:29

that the standard for re examining a law

29:31

enforcement agent's past cases

29:34

is a quote credible indication

29:36

of intentional misconduct.

29:40

The statement continues, expanding

29:42

this rational standard to every

29:45

instance where a judge or CRU

29:47

finds faults in a prosecutor's

29:50

work is absurd. So,

29:53

and this is me talking about the DA's office.

29:56

The distinction being made by the district attorney

29:59

is that that office believes that

30:01

Scarcella's misconduct was intentional,

30:05

but apparently does not believe

30:07

that its colleagues, the ADAS,

30:10

did anything wrong

30:12

intentionally. We'll

30:15

be following up on this, but let

30:17

me just say now, lying to

30:19

a jury does not seem to me like

30:21

an accidental oversight.

30:24

It seems to me like there must be

30:27

some intention involved

30:29

in that. The DA statement

30:31

continued. The current Conviction Review

30:33

Unit is the largest, best resourced,

30:36

and most active in the United States.

30:39

It goes on Brooklyn. CRU

30:41

will continue to accept petitions from anyone

30:43

who claims that they were unjustly

30:46

convicted. It will continue to conduct

30:48

its reviews with the highest standards of professionalism,

30:51

transparency, and accountability,

30:53

and it will continue to set an example for

30:56

jurisdictions across the country.

31:00

Anyone has a thought on this, leave a message for us

31:02

at one, eight, three, three eight

31:05

Burden One Note.

31:07

We reached out to all the prosecutors named

31:09

in this episode. None took us

31:11

up on our invitation to comment. For

31:14

more on Ted's findings, read his excellent article

31:16

which came out of this research. It's

31:18

called the Scarcellaphiles. When

31:21

unethical prosecutors get off Scott

31:23

Free. It's in The Independent.

31:33

This episode was produced by Drew Nellis.

31:35

Our associate producer and production

31:37

coordinator is Austin Smith. Sound

31:40

design was provided by Bianca Salitis.

31:43

Fact checking by Ryan Alderman, Dax

31:45

Devlin Ross and me Steve Fishman.

31:48

We are your hosts. The Burden

31:50

is a production of Orbit Media.

31:53

Thanks for listening, and now

31:55

that you've made it through the credits, don't forget

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to sign up. To be a subscriber

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