Dhoruba bin Wahad - Perjury / False Accusation

Moore, Richard (aka Dhoruba bin Wahad); attempted murder; NRE: perjury/false accusation, prosecutor misconduct, police officer misconduct, withheld exculpatory evidence, misconduct that is not withholding evidence, witness tampering or misconduct interrogating co-defendant

[397:975]; Court of Appeals 7/7/77; affirmed

"The shooting occurred on May 19, 1971 on Riverside Drive in Manhattan. That evening a marked police car with two uniformed police officers, Thomas Curry and Nicholas Binetti, was stationed outside the home of Frank Hogan, who was then [Manhattan DA]. At approximately 9 o'clock the officers noticed a car going the wrong way on a one-way street. They pursued the vehicle and, after stopping it, were met with a hail of machine gun bullets.

"Both of the officers were seriously injured but survived the assault. Neither however was able to identify the persons who attacked them. Bystanders supplied some information: a description of the car as a blue or green late model Maverick or Mustang, several variations of the license plate number [FN1: There were three possible license plate numbers: 8373YR, 8373YD, and 8733YA] and a general description of the occupants as being black. In addition police ballistics experts were able to determine that the two officers had been shot by a .45 caliber automatic or semiautomatic weapon.

"Two days after the shooting...a young black woman left a package at WLIB, a Harlem radio station. Approximately a half hour later a black man left a similar package, folded inside a newspaper, at the security desk of the New York Times. Each of the packages contained a New York license plate No. 8373YR, a .45 caliber cartridge, an airmail envelope and a typewritten letter. The envelope indicated that it contained a letter explaining '(t)he shooting of two N.Y.P.D. Pigs on Malcolm's Birthday,' apparently referring to May 19, the birthday of Malcolm X. The letters stated: 'Here are the license plates sort (sic) after the Fascist state pig police. We send them in order to exhibit the potential power of oppressed peoples to acquire Revolutionary Justice. The armed goons of this racist government will again meet the guns of oppressed third world peoples as long as they occupy our community and murder our brothers and sisters in the name of law and order. . .The domestic armed forces of racism and oppression will be confronted with the guns of the Black Liberation Army, who will meet (sic) out in the tradition of Malcolm and all true revolutionaries real justice. We are Revolutionary Justice'..."

"Analysis by police experts revealed that each letter had been written on the same typewriter and halves of the same piece of paper. The police also discovered four readable fingerprints on the newspaper, which had been folded around the package delivered to the New York Times. The license plates, it turned out, had been stolen prior to the shooting.

"In the early morning hours of June 5, 1971 [Moore] and three others were arrested in an unrelated incident at a Bronx 'after hours' bar. Several weapons were found in the bar, including a loaded .45 caliber submachine gun. One of the patrons said [Moore] had entered the bar armed with the submachine gun. Police ballistics experts immediately checked the weapon and found that it was the one which had been used in the Riverside shooting. The police also learned that [Moore's] fingerprints matched two of the four prints found on the newspaper which had been left with the package at the...New York Times.

"A week later...the police received an anonymous call from a woman who stated that [Moore] had spent the evening of May 19 at a Bronx apartment belonging to the commonlaw wife of Eddie Joseph. That led them to Pauline Joseph, who became the chief witness for the prosecution. [FN2: At the trial it was stipulated that Pauline Joseph made the anonymous call herself, in which she originally stated that the four men being held in custody were not involved in the Riverside shooting or a later fatal shooting of two police officers in the 32nd precinct. ] Pauline Joseph stated that in January 1971 a girl friend of hers moved into an apartment with a man named Andrew Jackson, who was active in the Black Panther Party. After that a number of Jackson's friends, including [Moore] and Eddie Joseph, visited the apartment and, one by one, set up residence there. On May 15 [Moore] moved in with a black vinyl bag containing a machine gun. Later that day she saw a diagram of a building and was informed that [Moore] and Michael Hill were then planning to blow up a police station. They apparently abandoned this plan when she protested that 'innocent people,' meaning prisoners, might get hurt. The following day she again asked [Moore] and Hill what they planned to do. [Moore] replied 'we're going to deal with some pigs.' This time however he had decided to 'hit them from the outside.' When she pressed for further details [Moore] [???] simply said 'I'm going to kill them.'

"On May 19, Pauline Joseph saw [Moore] load the machine gun and place it in a duffel bag. At approximately 6 p.m. he picked up the duffel bag and left the apartment. Within 10 or 15 minutes, Irving Mason and Eddie Joseph, who was armed with a hand gun, also left the apartment. The three men returned approximately four and one-half hours later. Pauline Joseph noticed that one of the machine gun magazines was empty. [Moore] would not tell her what happened to the bullets. At 11 o'clock they all watched the news reports of the Riverside shooting on television. After it was over Pauline Joseph told [Moore] 'I think you did it' and he replied 'so what, you better keep your mouth shut.'

"That evening Pauline Joseph and Irving Mason's wife found an expended shell casing on the floor of a blue Maverick parked two blocks from the building. They turned it over to Irving Mason. The following day she saw two license plates in the apartment and she heard [Moore] and several others discussing the possibility of getting into the hospital 'to finish off the cops.'"

[Of course none of the evidence at trial directly established Moore's guilt. The prosecution's case was largely circumstantial.]

[His first trial ended in a hung jury.]

[568:784]; 1st Dept. 4/25/91; Cty. Ct. grant of motion to vacate affirmed, due to non-disclosure of Brady material

[579:636]; Court of Appeals 12/19/91; above decision reversed, saying that a hearing was necessary to determine whether violation likely contributed to verdict

[593:939]; N.Y. Cty. Ct. 1/7/93; new trial ordered, because materials withheld had reasonable probability of changing verdicts

[612:14]; 2nd Dept. 5/17/94; above decision ordering new trial affirmed

from NRE synopsis (by Maurice Possley):

"After his conviction, defense lawyers discovered that prosecutors had failed to turn over statements of witnesses that might have been used to impeach the witnesses' testimony at trial. In March 1990, Wahad's conviction was overturned because of the prosecution's failure to disclose this exculpatory evidence, and he was released.

"The prosecution appealed the decision and it was upheld in January 1993 in a ruling that said that the statements of the prosecution's key witness, Pauline Joseph, that were not disclosed included statements which 'depart significantly from some of her most crucial testimony, and that testimony was essential' to the prosecution's theory of the case.

"The prosecution then announced that they would not retry Wahad.

"Wahad sued both the FBI and the [NYPD] and ultimately received a total of almost $900,000."

[All emphases added unless otherwise noted.]