New York Judge Looks at Wrongful Convictions

A wrongful conviction is arguably the worst thing that can happen in our justice system, worse even than letting a guilty person go free. Convicting the innocent commits two grave wrongs — it deprives a guiltless person of his freedom, and leaves the real criminal on the street.


Now, Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, in his first major action as the leader of New York's judiciary, wants to look at how the system can be improved to reduce the likelihood of such mistakes. He has created a Justice Task Force to review all wrongful conviction cases to see what lessons can be learned from them. It's an important undertaking and we commend him for doing it.

As Judge Lippman noted in announcing the initiative on Law Day last Friday, there have been scores of known wrongful convictions in the last 20 years. The use of DNA testing alone has exposed 235 of them around the country, including 24 in New York.

Some of the defendants spent years behind bars. Kian Khatibi was in prison for nine years for a stabbing in Westchester County before his brother confessed in 2007 — after the statute of limitations had passed. Jeffrey Deskovic, convicted of rape and murder in Westchester County when he was 16, was imprisoned for 16 years before he was exonerated in 2006. And Roy Brown, a dentist who was convicted in 1992 of a slaying in Cayuga County, was released in 2007; the victim's ex-boyfriend was the killer.

Read more: Wrong verdicts, right idea

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