"I've been waiting a long time": A New York man was released Thursday after 18 years from prison after being convicted of a murder he did not commit, after he was wrongfully, intentionally and maliciously accused by the police.
The judicial calvary of Sheldon Thomas, 35, can hardly be believed.
The young African-American was convicted in 2004 of the murder of another teenager, 14 at the time, in Brooklyn.
The real perpetrator of the murder remains unknown and elusive.
During a hearing in New York, Mr. Thomas assured that he forgives the investigators, the main prosecution witness, the prosecutors and thanks the judge who acquitted him.
"I've waited too long," he said simply.
Sheldon Thomas is now free after a big-city judge granted the prosecution's request to overturn the conviction.
In a press release that he published, prosecutor Eric Gonzalez made it known that the investigation of this specific case showed that the young man was unfairly accused by police officers, who used a photo of another African-American with the same name to arrest him.
"The defendant was arrested thanks to a witness who said he was someone else (based on a photo), who had the same name, an error that was later covered up and justified in the criminal proceedings," Mr. Gonzalez said.
The witness identified Sheldon Thomas when she was shown a photo of another Sheldon Thomas, which police officers deliberately and fraudulently retrieved from a database.
Based on this mistaken identification, Mr. Thomas was arrested at his home and later pointed out by the same witness. The identification led to his being put on trial for murder and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
According to the National Registry of Exonerations, which is maintained by an American university, the approximately 2.500 people exonerated after their convictions by the American justice system in the last 30 years spent an average of 13,9 years in prison wrongfully. . Maximum term of unjust imprisonment: 47 years and two months.
In November 2021, a 43-year-old African-American man was acquitted and released in the state of Missouri after XNUMX years in prison due to a miscarriage of justice.
Source: RES-EAP