Shawn Williams - Perjury / False Confession

Williams, Shawn; murder; NRE: perjury/false accusation, inadequate legal defense, prosecutor misconduct, police officer misconduct, withheld exculpatory evidence, misconduct that is not withholding evidence, witness tampering or misconduct interrogating co-defendant, perjury by official

Suggestibility issues [642:557]; 2nd Dept. 5/6/96; affirmed

"[W]e are satisfied that the verdict of guilt was not against the weight of the evidence..."

N16 "[A]fter serving about 25 years in prison, [Williams] walked away a free man July 13 [of 2018]...On July 13...Brooklyn...Justice Shannon Hudson granted a motion to vacate Williams' conviction and dismiss the original indictment, ordering his immediate release. Williams, who was convicted for the 1993 shooting of Marvin Mason, is the latest defendant tied to former Brooklyn detective Louis Scarcella whose conviction has been overturned...Shawn's conviction rested on testimony from a sole eyewitness, Margaret Smith, who claimed that she had seen Williams at the scene with a gun around the time of the killing, even though it was midnight and she was looking down from her sixth-story window,* more than 100 feet away...In 2013...Smith recanted her testimony, stating that she had been coerced by Scarcella into naming Williams..."

[* Yet again, we have a supposed 'identification' of a person at street-level by someone looking out a window from several stories up -- here, at midnight, no less. That's absurd. The fact that any jury or judge would buy that is an indictment of their extreme gullibility.]

"[T]he defense team also found evidence placing Williams in Pennsylvania at the time of the murder..."

from Records and Briefs:

"When Officer [John] Salerno...arrived on the scene, he saw Mason lying down in a pool of his own blood, with a single gunshot wound to the head. [from FN2: The bullet entered above Mason's left eye and traveled toward the back of the head, from left to right...The bullet and copper jacket...were recovered from the brain tissue..Because there was stippling near the wound, [Dr. Stephen] Doroux concluded that the gun was no more than two feet from the decedent's head when it was fired.] Mason's [4] backpack or knapsack, which was on the lobby floor near his body, had been opened and its contents strewn about..."

"Margaret Smith...was in her sixth-floor apartment bedroom talking on the telephone with a friend when she heard the gunshot...At the time, she was sitting on the windowsill bench, from [5] which she had a view of Eastern Parkway...About two minutes before she heard the shot, she had seen her neighbor, Marvin Mason, enter the building..."

"'Damn, is that a shot?,' Smith said to her friend on the telephone, as she leaned on the window sill and looked down to the street below...She saw two young men emerge from the building; one was wearing black pants and a shirt with horizontal stripes, while the other wore black pants and a plain white shirt...The young man in the striped shirt, whom Smith claimed she recognized as [Williams], was putting a gun into his waistband..."

"Smith... [6] maintained that she knew [Williams] from the neighborhood; she also said she knew his nickname, Murdock..."

"After the building, the two young men turned left and headed down the block in the direction of Buffalo Avenue...The two young men, who were standing near a lamppost, turned around and looked back at the building; Smith claimed that before they ran out she could clearly make out that one of the two was [Williams]..."

[14] "Smith testified that when the two men, who by then walked down the block, turned to look back in her direction, she could clearly recognize [Williams]...[I]t is implausible that Smith's ability to see the young men would get better the further away they walked."

from NRE synopsis (by Maurice Possley):

"Shortly after midnight on July 9, 1993, 18-year-old Marvin Mason was shot to death during an apparent robbery in the lobby of the building where he lived on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn...Several witnesses reported seeing two men run from the building, but none were able to identify them.

"Edmond Adams and Vanessa Wagner, who were sitting on a bench across the street, said they saw two men flee. Adams said one was 5 feet 2 inches to 5 feet 4 inches tall, and the other was 5 feet 4 inches to 5 feet 6 inches tall.

"At about 9 a.m., New York police detectives Louis Scarcella and Steven Chmil came to the Mason family apartment. Based upon his inquiries in the neighborhood, Mason's brother, Christopher, gave the detectives the name 'Murdock,' as one of the robbers. 'Murdock' was the nickname of 19-year-old Shawn Williams.

"Scarcella and Chmil created a photo lineup that included Willliams's photo. However, no one was able to identify him. The detectives visited the sixth-floor apartment of Margaret Smith, a building resident, that evening. She said from her apartment window she saw two men run away, but was unable to identify them. She said she recognized Williams from the neighborhood, but not as one of the robbers.

"The two detectives would later testify that based on a 'vibe' that Smith might know more than she was revealing, they returned to her apartment on July 27, 1993. Chmil also later testified that during this interview, Smith identified Williams as one of the robbers.

"Subsequently, another detective said that he spoke to Kenyatta Moore, who was in a police lockup. Moore disclosed that on July 11, two days after the murder, he heard Williams bragging about shooting Mason. Moore gave the same account under oath to a grand jury that indicted Williams for the murder.

"On October 1, according to the detectives, Smith identified Williams in a photo array and in a live lineup. Williams was arrested and charged with second-degree murder, although he was 6 feet tall -- at least half a foot taller than the description given by Edmond Adams.

"At the time Williams was arrested, he told Scarcella he was in Reading, Pennsylvania at the time of the murder. Williams said he had been arrested for drinking beer in public on July 2, 1993 and provided a false name to police. Scarcella claimed he looked for a record of that arrest and found none.

"On August 10, 1994, Williams went to trial in [Brooklyn]. Scarcella and Chmil testified that Christopher Mason gave them the nickname 'Murdock,' and how their 'vibe' led them to visit Smith when she first identified Williams.

"Smith was the only witness to identify Williams. She said she was sitting on the windowsill of her sixth-floor apartment talking on the phone when she heard the gunshot. She said she recognized Williams when he stopped under a streetlight. She said she saw his face when he looked up and laughed, and that she recognized him from a scar on his neck.

"However, in contrast to the detectives' testimony, Smith said her identification came during the first visit by the detectives on July 9, the same day of the shooting, not on July 27. She also said she -- not Christopher Mason -- first mentioned the nickname 'Murdock' to detectives. She said she had 'no doubt' that she told the detectives on that first day to look for 'Murdock.'

"Vanessa Wagner testified that she heard a loud noise and saw two young men flee from the scene. She did not identify Williams.

"On August 16, 1994, the jury convicted Williams..."

"In May 1996, the Appellate Division upheld the conviction..."

"In August 2013, the New York law firm of Cleary Gottlieb Steen LLP & Hamilton, along with the Legal Aid Society of New York, began representing Williams. Working with Kroll, Inc., an investigative agency, the legal team located and interviewed Smith. In her first meeting with Cleary and Kroll, Smith said Scarcella and Chmil coerced her to falsely identify Williams. Smith also confirmed that in about 2009, Williams, with the help of a relative, was able to telephone Smith. She told him that her testimony was false and coerced, and urged him to send someone to interview her.

"Smith said Scarcella and Chmil coerced her to falsely identify Williams. Smith signed a sworn affidavit that 'at no time' did she see any faces or physical characteristics of anyone leaving the scene of the shooting. She said that when Scarcella and Chmil came to her home to show her the photographic lineup, they 'moved very quickly through the book of photographs' until they 'stopped on a page, pointed to a particular photograph' and said that was 'Murdock.'

"Smith said that she did not recognize Williams from the photos, did not see him the night of the murder, and did not know his name or any nickname he had. She said the detectives told her that Williams was the killer.

"She admited she falsely identified Williams, but said she felt pressured to do what she believed the detectives wanted her to do. Smith also said she only identified Williams in the live lineup because she had already seen his photograph.

"Smith also disclosed that at the time of the trial, she lived in Georgia and did not want to testify. Police came to her home with a material witness order. She was taken to a Georgia court where she said she was arrested and jailed briefly. After her release, the officers came to her house and escorted her 'against my will, to New York by plane.' She concluded that she had to falsely testify against Williams so that the police and prosecution would let her alone.

"Smith said Scarcella and Chmil told her that 'several individuals (incuding another eyewitness) had informed them that Murdock was the individual who killed Marvin Mason.' However, no other witnesses gave such testimony."*

[* So, Scarcella and Chmil lied to her. But even if they had been telling the truth, this would still have been improper, because it would have been immensely suggestive.]

"After speaking with Smith, Cleary undertook a search for the material witness order in the materials provided by the Brooklyn [DA's] Office, but could not find it. Cleary asked the Brooklyn [DA's] Office to review their files, and a material witness order for Smith, dated August 2, 1994, was located. There was no evidence the order was ever disclosed to the defense at Williams's trial. Indeed, Williams had no recollection of ever being told of a material witness order for Smith.

"Williams's legal team retained Dr. Geoffrey Loftus, a University of Washington psychology professor specializing in memory. Loftus reviewed Smith's testimony at the trial and concluded it was unreliable and flawed. He said, 'Ms. Smith, from her window, would have been looking almost straight down at the subject. . .From this angle, Ms. Smith would almost certainly have only been able to see the top of the subject's head.' Loftus concluded that 'scientific evidence indicates it is highly unlikely that Ms. Smith could have been able to accurately perceive or memorize the subject's appearance given the lighting and distance under which the purported identification was made.'

"In addition, Erick Hylton, a former U.S. Marine who moved into Smith's apartment in 1993 (the same year as Mason's murder) and was still residing there, spoke to investigators. He said that he would not have been able to recognize anyone on the street -- even if he already knew the person -- because the street lighting was so poor.

"Williams's legal team also looked into his statement to Scarcella at the time of his arrest that he was in Reading, Pennsylvania at the time of the murder, and had been arrested on July 2 for drinking beer and provided a false first name. Athough Scarcella claimed he was unable to find the record, a search in 2014 turned up an arrest report for 'Tony Williams' at the exact time and location that Williams said he had been arrested. In addition, the legal team found medical records showing that Williams had received treatment at a hospital in Reading on July 11, 1993 -- two days after the murder.

"In May 2014, after getting Smith's recantation, Williams's legal team informed the conviction review unit at the Brooklyn [DA's] office. In 2015, the lawyers provided the additional information from Dr. Loftus and Hylton.

"In January 2017, Williams's lawyers filed a post-conviction motion in [Brooklyn] seeking to vacate his conviction. The [DA's] Office opposed the motion."

"On June 15, 2018, the Brooklyn [DA's] Office filed a letter with [Brooklyn] Justice Sharen Hudson saying it would no longer oppose the motion to vacate Williams's conviction.

"On July 13, 2018, Justice Hudson granted the motion and dismissed the indictment against Williams, who was released immediately after serving nearly 25 years in prison...Williams later filed a claim for compensation with the New York State Court of Claims as well as a federal civil rights lawsuit.

"The compensation claim was dismissed in 2022, but in April 2022, the City of New York agreed to pay Williams $10.5 million to settle the lawsuit. Williams subsequently filed an appeal of the dismissal of the compensation claim in the...Second...Department."

[All emphases added unless othewise noted.]