Exonerated Brooklyn Man Got Just Eight Months of Freedom After 23 Years in Prison

In 1989 William Lopez was convicted of killing
Elvirn Surria, a Brooklyn crack dealer, with a shotgun while
robbing him. Since there was no physical evidence linking Lopez to
the murder, the Kings County District Attorney’s Office relied on
the testimony of two eyewitnesses. One was a courier for Surria
whose description of the gunman did not match Lopez and who could
not point him out in court. The other was a crack addict facing a
drug charge who agreed to testify against Lopez in exchange for
lenient treatment and later recanted.

Last January, responding to a habeas corpus petition filed by
Lopez, a federal judge
overturned his conviction, calling the prosecutor “overzealous
and deceitful,” the defense attorneys “indolent and ill prepared,”
the trial judge’s decisions “incomprehensible,” and the jury’s
verdict “bewildering.” Lopez was
released from prison a week later. On Saturday morning, The
New York Post reports,
he died of an asthma attack at the age of 55, having enjoyed
eight months of freedom after serving 23 years in prison for a
crime he did not commit. Lopez had filed a lawsuit against New York
City, seeking $124 million in damages. The trial was supposed to
begin this week. 

There seem to have been more than a few trumped-up convictions
under Charles Hynes, the long-serving Brooklyn district attorney
who was succeeded this year by Kenneth P. Thompson. Thompson
established a Conviction Review Unit that is
examining about 100 cases, including 57 based on work by a
legendary detective, Louis Scarcella, “whose methods have come
under attack” (as The New York Times delicately

puts it). Summarizing half a dozen exonerations resulting
from reviews under Thompson, the Times reports that
two were “based on DNA evidence,” three were based on the
unreliability of testimony by “a crack-addicted
witness who was frequently used by Mr. Scarcella,” and “the
sixth was based on a receipt and police reports showing
that the defendant was, as he had always claimed, in Florida during
the murder.”