New York’s Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, announced on Monday that he was moving to vacate the conviction of two men found guilty of murders in the 1990s near a Harlem police precinct known for corruption.
Wayne Gardine and Jabar Walker, both aged 49, now join the list of New Yorkers, overwhelmingly Black and Hispanic, who have been exonerated after decades in prison.
Gardine was 22 when he was convicted in 1996 for the shooting death of 22-year-old Robert Mickens. Bragg said he now supported the Legal Aid Society’s motion to vacate and dismiss the indictment of Gardine “in the interest of justice and because the case cannot be proved beyond a reasonable doubt”. Gardine was released on parole in 2022.
The other man, Jabar Walker, was convicted in 1998 of the double murder of William Santana, 32, and Ismael De La Cruz, 30. Walker was released from prison on Monday after serving 25 years of two consecutive terms of 25 years to life in prison.
Bragg’s office said it had worked with the advocacy group the Innocence Project to set aside the conviction and dismiss the indictment of Walker based on newly discovered evidence and ineffective assistance of counsel, and agreed not to re-prosecute Walker in the interest of justice.
“Wayne Gardine was just 22 years old when he was sentenced to decades in prison following a trial that we now believe relied on an unreliable witness and testimony – losing years of freedom due to an unjust conviction,” Bragg said in statement.
Bragg noted that the vacation of the case against Jabar Walker had included a witness who had recanted trial testimony against Walker to his lawyer on the day of his sentencing and had recanted again under oath in 1999 and 2021, saying he was pressured to implicate Walker.
“Not only was the case against Jabar Walker built upon unreliable and recanted testimony, he did not have the benefit of an effective defense attorney – one of the constitutional bedrocks of our justice system,” Bragg said.
