NEW LOOK AT ’91 SLAY
Con gets hearing to argue bad rap
A BROOKLYN MAN convicted of a double murder 25 years ago has been granted the opportunity to clear his name, the Daily News has learned.
Earl Jefferson, 45, was a teenager when he was convicted of fatally shooting two men in Crown Heights on March 27, 1991.
A jury reached a guilty verdict even though five witnesses corroborated Jefferson’s alibi and medical records showed that on the day of the killings, he was recuperating from being shot himself.
But what may now save Jefferson from his sentence of 50 years to life is an eyewitness recanting his story.
Michael Gaylord, a cousin of one of the victims, had testified for Brooklyn prosecutors at the 1992 murder trial.
But two years ago, Gaylord’s conscience got the best of him. He told the Brooklyn district attorney’s office’s Conviction Review Unit that prosecutors had pressured him to identify Jefferson.
“I want proper justice for my cousin and friend, but I don’t want the continued injustice of an innocent man,” Gaylord said in a sworn affidavit.
The Conviction Review Unit — which has overturned 23 wrongful convictions since 2014 — was looking at the murder case until Jefferson’s lawyer filed a motion to a judge to see whether his client received a fair trial.
Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Miriam Cyrulnik wrote a decision on Sept. 15, granting Jefferson a hearing to prove that Gaylord’s recanted testimony “constitutes as newly discovered evidence.”
“He is thankful the court is giving him the opportunity to prove his innocence,” Jefferson’s attorney, Darren Fields, told The News.
Jefferson’s hearing is scheduled for Oct. 27.
“A full hearing will ultimately prove Mr. Jefferson was not a participant in the crime that has already taken more than 26 years of his life away,” said Fields.
Jefferson is currently imprisoned at Sullivan Correctional Facility.
Prosecutors said he gunned down Ronnie Fisher and Eric Starling on Pacific St. and Kingston Ave. He was 18 at the time.
But medical records showed that, two weeks before the murders, Jefferson was shot himself. He suffered injuries to his sciatic nerve and left ankle.
Jefferson was released from Kings County Hospital just one day before Fisher and Starling were shot, records show. And even then, he needed crutches to walk.
“I personally feel there was insufficient evidence to convict Mr. Jefferson during his original trial,” Fields said.
The late Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson set up the Conviction Review Unit shortly after he took office in 2014. The unit has been tasked with sifting through decades-old murder cases, reexamining witnesses and inspecting records.