New York – A lawsuit filed by wrongly convicted felon Jabbar Collins against the office of Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes and the NYPD can proceed, a federal judge ruled on Friday.
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According to a report in the New York Times (http://nyti.ms/12TBrn3), Collins served 16 years in prison for the 1994 murder of haredi Jew Abraham Pollack of Williamsburg after a heroin addict – pressured by police and Michael F. Vecchione, a top aide to Mr. Hynes – falsely identified Collins as Pollack’s killer even though there was no evidence linking Collins to the murder.
Released in 2010, Collins filed a $150 million suit claiming that his unlawful conviction was the “result of city policies that encouraged unconstitutional behavior and led to other injustices.”
Brooklyn Federal Judge Frederic Block denied the City’s motion to have the case thrown out, saying the facts of the case point to major misconduct on the part of both police and prosecutors and warrants a trial.
“The court concludes that Collin’s allegations regarding Hyne’s response – or lack thereof – to misconduct by Vecchione and other assistants make plausible his theory that Hynes was so deliberately indifferent to the underhanded tactics that his subordinates employed as to effectively encourage them to do so,” the Judge wrote in his opinion.
An April trial has been set for Mr. Collins’ lawsuit.
It’s about time that prosecutors are held accountable to the abuses that regularly happen in their offices. They are so determined to get a conviction they routinely bend the rules.
The only problem is, that the city gets sued, and those who actually perpetuated this injustice are totally immune.
Huh? I think you’re on the wrong thread, but nonsensical regardless.
Hynes!
What goes around comes around!
I’m glad to see you go down.
I’ve been a lifelong supporter of the men and women in blue. They put their lives on the line on a daily basis, for very little renumeration. Theirs is a thankless job. However over the last few years my opinion has changed drastically. Scandel after scandel, and jackboot tactics, no longer allow me to give them the benefit of the doubt. Their ranks have been filled with low life, trash personnel that cannot be trusted As far as I am concerned they have forfeited the moral high ground.
So lets say they win the law suit, who pays, Mr. Hynes?