Legal Research

New York Prosecutor Helped Defense With Murder Case

By David Badertscher, PLL

Source: Crime and Justice News,  June 23, 2008.

New York prosecutor Daniel Bibb spent nearly two years reinvestigating a killing and concluded that two imprisoned men were not guilty. He said his superiors told him, to go into court and defend the case anyway. He did, and he lost. Now, Bibb tells the New York Times that "he threw the case. Unwilling to do what his bosses ordered, he said, he deliberately helped the other side win." He tracked down witnesses who pointed to other suspects and prepared them to testify for the defense. He talked strategy with defense lawyers. "I did the best I could," he said. "To lose."

Today, the two men are free. Bibb, 53, resigned in 2006 and is trying to build a new career as a defense lawyer, with some difficulty, friends say, in a profession where success can hang on the ability to cut deals with prosecutors. Daniel Castleman, chief assistant district attorney, said, "Nobody in this office is ever required to prosecute someone they believe is innocent. That was true then, as it is now." The office has said it had good reason to believe that the two men were guilty. "I was angry," Bibb said, "that I was being put in a position to defend convictions that I didn't believe in."

New York Times

Full post as published by New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library on June 23, 2008 (boomark / email).