Legal Commentary

$3.5M Compensation For Wrongful Conviction in Queens

By TChris

New York City has agreed to pay $3.5 million to Shih-Wei Su. That will make his life better, but it won't give him back 12 years of lost freedom.

Shih-Wei Su, was convicted by a jury in 1992 after Queens prosecutors knowingly presented false testimony from the star witness, according to a ruling in 2003 by the United States Court of Appeals, which overturned Mr. Su’s conviction and condemned the Queens district attorney’s office. ...

“The settlement doesn’t buy back the time I lost and doesn’t do real justice, but the amount shows the public something is very wrong here,” said Mr. Su, now 35 and a financial consultant in Manhattan. “I did 12 years on a wrongful conviction, and no one was punished for it.”

Misconduct by police and prosecutors that leads to wrongful convictions is rarely punished. [more ...]

Joel B. Rudin, Mr. Su’s lawyer, said that his research showed that about 80 Queens convictions over a 15-year period ending in 2003 had been reversed because of prosecutorial wrongdoing, but that those prosecutors had never been disciplined.

The taxpayers who are funding the $3.5 million settlement should ask whether more effective oversight of prosecutors might prevent more settlements like this one -- and might avoid devastating the lives of people like Su.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on October 18, 2008 (boomark / email).