Vanessa Gathers - False Confession

Gathers, Vanessa; manslaughter; NRE: false confession, police officer misconduct, misconduct that is not withholding evidence, misconduct in interrogation of exoneree

Suggestibility issues

"Brooklyn DA Supports Upset of Woman's 1998 Conviction," Joel Stashenko, New York Law Journal, 2/24/16

"Brooklyn prosecutors moved to vacate the manslaughter conviction of a woman that was returned by a jury in 1998 largely on the strength of a confession given to the former...detective Louis Scarcella."

"Brooklyn...Justice Matthew D'Emic accepted the prosecution's request to set aside Gathers' conviction for the 2002 death of Michael Shaw."

"Inaccuracies Gathers made to authorities about her role in the crime, evidence that police lied about Shaw's death, and a 'complete lack of coherent narrative' in her confession, led [the] conviction review unit to conclude that reasonable doubt existed about her guilt."

from NRE synpsis (by Maurice Possley):

"On November 18, 1991, 71-year-old Michael Shaw's two daughters found him in his apartment of the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn...He had been badly beaten. He said he had been robbed and attacked by three women the night before.

"Shaw was taken to a hospital where he became comatose. He died in April 1992. At that time, his case was elevated from robbery and assault to homicide and was assigned to [NYPD] detective Louis Scarcella.

"Soon after Shaw died, Scarcella crossed paths with 34-year-old Vanessa Gathers, a neighborhood resident, who told Scarcella that a woman in the neighborhood had admitted being involved in the assault. Scarcella interviewed the woman and she denied involvement, but implicated three others in the crime. The case went dormant.

"Five years later, after Scarcella had been transferred out of the Brooklyn homicide bureau and into the 77th Precinct to solve 'cold cases,' the first case he turned to was the Shaw murder.

"Scarcella found Gathers living in the same building where she lived in 1991 and brought her in for questioning. He said he had a witness who placed her in Shaw's apartment when he was beaten and robbed and forensic evidence linking her to the crime. He promised that she would be released if she would just admit being present at the time of the crime. Gathers took a polygraph examination and Scarcella said she failed. When Gathers finally relented and gave a video-taped confession, Scarcella didn't let her go and instead arrested her...Gathers recanted the confession almost immediately, but it was too late.

"Gathers went to trial...in February 1998. The primary evidence against her was the confession, which Scarcella read in court and testified that he obtained without coercing Gathers. In the confession, Gathers said she went to Shaw's apartment with another woman who beat Shaw, who was in a wheelchair. Gathers said she took $60 from Shaw's pocket. Gathers testified in her own defense and denied any involvement and told the jury the confession was false.

"On February 25, 1998, the jury convicted Gathers...No one else was ever charged in the case.

"In 2001, Gathers' appeal was denied. In March 2007, she was released from prison on parole, still maintaining her innocence.

"In 2015, attorneys for the Legal Aid Society and the law firm of Hughes Hubbard & Reed, who had been representing Gathers since 2013, asked the [Brooklyn] Conviction Review Unit to investigate the case.

"The Conviction Review Unit discovered that Shaw was never in a wheelchair and it was highly unlikely he would have had any money for anyone to steal -- as Gathers said in the confession. There was a witness who said Gathers was involved, but she had been deemed not credible from the very beginning. There was no forensic evidence linking her to the crime. Although the polygraph examination indicated deception on Gathers' part, the Conviction Review Unit concluded that the combination of the general ubnreliability of polygraph results and the fact that the examination was five years after the crime rendered it of no evidentiary value.

"On February 23, 2016, Thompson filed a motion to vacate Gathers' convictions. The motion was granted and Thompson dismissed the charges.

"In May 2016, Gathers filed a claim for compensation in the New York Court of Claims. It was settled for $1.5 million. She separately received $2.4 million in a settlement with the City of New York."

[All emphases added unless otherwise noted.]