Conviction tossed out in 1989 killing in Brooklyn!

NEW YORK     (PNN) - January 16, 2013 - A federal judge tossed out the conviction of a Brooklyn man who has spent 23 years in prison for the murder of a local drug dealer, ruling that the trial prosecutor was “overzealous and deceitful,” the man’s lawyers were “indolent and ill prepared,” and the decisions of the original trial judge were “incomprehensible”.

The ruling Wednesday sets the stage for the release of the man, William Lopez, within 60 days, unless the prosecution decides to try him again. But it is also noteworthy because it is the latest official rebuke of the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, which has been faulted repeatedly by judges for misconduct that has put innocent people behind bars.

A spokesman for Charles J. Hynes, the longtime district attorney who is preparing to run for re-election this year, declined to comment in detail, saying only that the office was reviewing the matter. Although the ruling by the judge, Nicholas G. Garaufis, of Federal District Court in Brooklyn, broadly assailed each of the stakeholders in Lopez’s conviction, the initial focus was what the judge called the weakness of the evidence that the prosecution presented at trial. “The prosecution’s evidence was flimsy to begin with, and has since been reduced to rubble by facts arising after trial,” he wrote.

In 2010, another federal judge called the office’s conduct “shameful” for the way it handled the case of Jabbar Collins, who later had his murder conviction vacated. In 2011, the outlaw office dismissed rape charges against four men after it was revealed that the fascist prosecution against them had continued even after the victim recanted. The office started its own unit to investigate claims of innocence; that unit overturned another case last year.

Judge Garaufis’ opinion, which came in response to a habeas corpus petition filed in 2002 by Lopez, described in detail a case that first went awry because of bad witness testimony.

In 1989, two men entered a crack house in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, and demanded money and drugs from a dealer named Elvirn Surria. One of the intruders shot and killed Surria with a double-barreled shotgun. They left no murder weapon or forensic evidence at the scene, so the prosecution relied on two witnesses who had been there.

One was Daisy Flores Lopez, who worked as a courier at the crack house. She testified that the gunman was a “tall, dark, black man” about six feet three inches in height. Lopez is more than half a foot shorter and has light skin. In one hearing, which was conducted outside the presence of the jury, a prosecutor asked Flores Lopez to look around the courtroom and identify the gunman. She said she did not see him, even though the man she had accused, Lopez, was sitting at the defense table.

Janet Chapman, an unemployed woman with a $200-a-day habit who lived in the basement of the crack house, had just finished a drug binge when the killing occurred; she said she saw Lopez kill Mr. Surria.

It was later revealed that Chapman had discussed a cooperation agreement with the prosecution, under which she would testify in exchange for a reduced sentence on a drug charge. Years later, Chapman recanted her testimony, writing in an affidavit, “I attended William Lopez’s trial and testified against him when I knew my every word was pure fabrication.” She continued, “The district attorney told me never to tell anyone that we cut a deal about my testimony, in exchange for my freedom.”

Ed. Note: For too many years, terrorist outlaw prosecutors have sent innocent men and women to prison, destroying their lives and violating their God-given rights to liberty. Since the fascist government refuses to prosecute these terrorist prosecutors, perhaps it is time to start executing vigilante justice on them. Maybe we should pick up prosecutors and either imprison them on private land - without any due process - or shoot them. Revolution Now! Independence Forever!