Andy urged to ink bill to eye DAs’ conduct
Advocates of a bill establishing a commission to oversee prosecutors’ conduct urged Gov. Cuomo on Monday to sign the measure, calling it “groundbreaking” reform that’ll “send a message to the wrongfully convicted and exonerated that what happened to you is unacceptable.”
Standing under the marble eaves of the New York State Supreme Court building, judicial reform activists, lawmakers and victims of wrongful incarceration gathered to tout the bill that Cuomo has until Aug. 20 to sign or veto.
With no action, it’ll automatically go into effect. The Legislature passed the measure in August.
“New York State will be the first of its kind,” said radio personality and former upstate New York moving business owner H. Bosh Jr., who was acquitted of arson in 2005. “This is groundbreaking legislation. And I hope every other state in the union follows.
“Those of us who have been wrongfully prosecuted, our life still changes,” he added. “Because I lost everything. After spending $200,000 and a fourweek trial, thank God, I was acquitted. But it still changed the trajectory of my life.”
Jeffrey Deskovic, convicted in Westchester County after a prosecutor withheld critical info — and ultimately exonerated by DNA — said he spent “16 years in prison for a murder and rape I did not commit.”
“By signing the legislation that we’re talking about today, Gov. Cuomo can send a message to the wrongfully convicted and exonerated that what happened to you is unacceptable, and we’re going to do everything in our power to prevent this from happening to someone else,” he said.
Paralegal Derek Hamilton, jailed 21 years on a wrongful murder conviction, lauded the bill for holding prosecutors accountable. “We beg you to pass a law that’s about human decency, that’s about protecting people — everybody — not just people who were wrongfully convicted,” he said.
“Human beings, people right now in court ... being charged wrongfully. But the prosecutor only cares about a conviction. They want to win. This is not a sporting game. This is people’s lives.”