FREE — BUT NOT CLEAR DA stands by slay conviction
He’s a free man, but he still wants to clear his name.
For 26 years, Michael Robinson languished in prison, serving time for a crime he insists he did not commit. And now that he is out of jail, with new evidence that could prove his point, he is determined to overturn his conviction.
But he may have to settle for just being free.
Despite a new determination by the medical examiner’s office that Robinson’s DNA was not under the nails of his estranged wife, Gwendolyn Samuels, whom he was accused of killing in 1993, the Queens district attorney’s office is standing by the conviction.
Robinson, 52, said he’s not frustrated, but “disappointed” the DA still hasn’t vacated the case.
“I’ve been saying I’m innocent for 26 years,” Robinson said, “and I’ve got the result to prove it.”
The proof, he says, is a DNA analysis from the murder victim’s fingernails that excluded Robinson as a person Samuels likely struggled with before she was stabbed to death. Initial city medical examiner results were “inconclusive,” Robinson’s attorneys said. The latest round of tests confirmed the findings of a private lab.
“Once we got these results, that should have been the end of it, and yet they’re (the Queens DA) still fighting to keep it,” said his Legal Aid lawyer Harold Ferguson.
It was enough for State Supreme Court Justice Stephen Knopf to order a hearing next month to assess the impact of the DNA evidence.
But prosecutors aren’t budging. “Our position under the facts of this case is that the presence or absence of the defendant’s DNA under the fingernails of the victim is irrelevant,” said a spokeswoman for acting Queens DA John Ryan.
“We never argued that it was the defendant’s DNA. There is no evidence that the poor deceased woman in this case had the opportunity to struggle with her assailant. And the evidence that convicted the defendant remains intact.”
Robinson was found guilty of killing his wife while she worked as a home health aide at an 89-year-old woman’s home. The elderly woman with bad eyesight and a foggy memory was the key witness at his trial. She was also stabbed during the encounter.
At the time of her death Samuels was pregnant with her new boyfriend’s child, according to court documents. Robinson’s legal papers described Samuels’ new beau as “a violent individual.”
Robinson was paroled in March and is working as a deliveryman now, a job light years from his chosen career path. He wanted to be a police officer until Samuels’ death put him on the other side of the law.
“I would say to the DA,” Robinson said, “with these new developments … they have the opportunity to read the report thoroughly and make the right decision: exoneration.”