IAPE Evidence Blog

The Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jer­sey)
BYLINE: Alexi Fried­man, Star-ledger staff

Newark, HJ

A recently dis­cov­ered error by the state has pushed back the parole date for a Newark man who has spent 22 years in prison for rape, but who con­tends miss­ing DNA evi­dence can prove his innocence.

Stephen Brooks was sched­uled to be paroled on Feb. 28 from East Jer­sey State Prison but that has been changed to Aug. 7, more than five months later, said Neal Buc­cino, a spokesman for the State Parole Board.

A review found the State Parole Board gave Brooks too many jail cred­its, Buc­cino said. “The pre­vi­ous date reflected an incor­rect cal­cu­la­tion,” he said.

The cred­its refer to the num­ber of days Brooks spent in jail from his arrest in August 1985 for rap­ing an East Orange woman up to Sept. 11, 1987, when he was sen­tenced to 50 years in state prison for the crime.

That sen­tence has been reduced for good behavior.

Brooks, 52, has been approved for the August parole date “pend­ing any new infor­ma­tion the board may receive,” Buc­cino said, which could include a state­ment from the rape vic­tim, who still lives in New Jersey.

The woman has said she would strongly oppose Brooks’ early parole appli­ca­tion. A call to her home was not returned yes­ter­day. When he is paroled, Brooks will move to an undis­closed res­i­den­tial facil­ity, where he must spend a min­i­mum of 90 days, Buc­cino said.

Brooks’ max­i­mum release date — when he is freed entirely — has also been pushed back to Jan. 9, 2011, from Octo­ber 2010. Because of his rape con­vic­tion, he will become a reg­is­tered sex offender. Brooks con­tin­ues to fight his rape con­vic­tion on the grounds that DNA evi­dence col­lected but never tested will clear his name.

He is being rep­re­sented by the Inno­cence Project, which won a rul­ing in August in Supe­rior Court in Newark that ordered East Orange police to con­duct a thor­ough search for the miss­ing evidence.

Noth­ing was found, but Vanessa Potkin, staff attor­ney for the Inno­cence Project, said she has been in touch with the court to request a sim­i­lar search of the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office. “So far, there is no account­ing of what hap­pened to that evi­dence,” Potkin said.

The prosecutor’s office main­tains it sent the evi­dence back to East Orange police long ago.

Regard­ing the con­fu­sion over Brooks’ parole, Potkin said the state has now taken away too many jail cred­its he had rightly earned.

“It just shows how the sys­tem can be in such dis­ar­ray,” she said.

Alexi Fried­man may be reached at (973) 642‑0341 or afriedman@starledger.com

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org

HT Media Ltd., Newswire, US State News

Tren­ton, NJ

TRENTON, N.J., Nov. 23 — The New Jer­sey State Seante Democ­rats issued the fol­low­ing news release:

The Sen­ate Judi­ciary Com­mit­tee today approved bill S2205 spon­sored by Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Richard J. Codey, which would sub­stan­tially increase the dam­age com­pen­sa­tion for any­one found wrong­fully con­victed and imprisoned.

The bill was orig­i­nally inspired by the story of Byron Halsey, the Plain­field res­i­dent who spent two decades in prison, only to have the charges dropped in 2007 after DNA evi­dence proved his innocence.

“There is no way to fully com­pen­sate some­one for the loss of years from their life,” said Sen. Codey (D-Essex). “In cases like Mr. Halsey’s, the world and the skills set needed have changed dras­ti­cally in the last 20 years. The least we can do is pro­vide a per­son with a greater cush­ion to accli­mate to life out­side of prison. This is just one small way to right a gross wrong.”

At the time, Halsey was the 205th per­son nation­wide to be exon­er­ated based on DNA evi­dence, accord­ing to the Inno­cence Project, a non-profit legal clinic ded­i­cated to rec­ti­fy­ing wrong­ful con­vic­tions. Today, 245 wrong­fully impris­oned peo­ple have been exon­er­ated nation­wide, includ­ing five in New Jersey.

Cur­rent state statute allows indi­vid­u­als who are wrong­fully con­victed and impris­oned to receive dam­ages of either twice the amount of the person’s income in the year prior to incar­cer­a­tion or $20,000 per year, whichever is greater.

Under Sen. Codey’s bill, indi­vid­u­als would be eli­gi­ble for up to $50,000 per year or twice the amount of their income prior to incar­cer­a­tion, whichever is greater.

The bill also calls for the com­pen­sa­tion amount to be increased every five years in accor­dance with the Con­sumer Price Index. If the amount of dam­ages awarded exceeds $1 mil­lion, the court would be able to order the award be paid as an annu­ity with a pay­out over a max­i­mum period of 20 years. Any dam­ages awarded would not be sub­ject to treat­ment as gross income to the claimant for State tax purposes.

The bill would also pro­vide courts with the dis­cre­tion to order other ser­vices deemed nec­es­sary to help the claimant accli­mate to life out­side of prison, includ­ing: voca­tional train­ing, tuition assis­tance, coun­sel­ing, hous­ing assis­tance and health insur­ance coverage.

The bill now heads to the full Sen­ate for approval.

For more infor­ma­tion please con­tact: Sarab­jit Jagir­dar, Email:- htsyndication@hindustantimes.com

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org

The Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jer­sey)
EDITORIAL

Essex County, NJ

More than two decades have gone by since Essex County law enforce­ment offi­cials gath­ered, and later mis­placed, DNA that might exon­er­ate Stephen Brooks in a rape he insists he did not com­mit. A Supe­rior Court judge is to hear argu­ments today on Brooks’ bid to com­pel pros­e­cu­tors to look long and hard for the lost evidence. 

We think the court should rule in his favor.

Brooks has served 22 years of a 50-year sen­tence for assault­ing an East Orange woman who was muf­fled, robbed and raped in her apart­ment in 1985. He was picked up nearby and iden­ti­fied by the vic­tim as the attacker. Although a bed sheet and other phys­i­cal evi­dence was recov­ered from the scene, DNA test­ing was not avail­able at the time.

Brooks began seek­ing DNA test­ing when it first became avail­able in 1988, and appealed his con­vic­tion. But pros­e­cu­tors said no DNA existed. That wasn’t true. Evi­dence from the crime scene, in fact, turned up years later at the State Police crime lab.

That evi­dence has since van­ished. The Inno­cence Project, which rep­re­sents those who claim to have been wrongly con­victed, is now try­ing to piece together what hap­pened. But the hunt for the evi­dence has been ham­pered by a series of mishaps, some which make it nearly impos­si­ble to fig­ure out where exactly it might be.

The evi­dence had been col­lected by East Orange police at the scene of the crime and shipped off to the State Police crime lab, accord­ing to Vanessa Potkin, an attor­ney for the Inno­cence Project. After test­ing by the State Police, it was picked up by the East Orange Police Depart­ment and taken to the prosecutor’s office.

The Essex County Prosecutor’s Office says it put the items in an evi­dence room before the case went to trial in 1987, but never intro­duced them at trial. An inves­ti­ga­tor from that office went to the evi­dence room and removed the items after trial, but says he can’t remem­ber what he did with them.
Bob Lau­rino, chief assis­tant pros­e­cu­tor for Essex County, thinks the evi­dence most likely no longer exists. For a time it was thought it might have been locked away in an old office vault to which no one had the com­bi­na­tion. But Lau­rino says offi­cials were finally able to get into the vault last week, and found no evi­dence rel­e­vant to Brooks’ case.

“We searched, we had noth­ing, we told them that,” he said.

Mean­while, the State Police crime lab had retained some sam­ples from the evi­dence it tested, and in 1998 returned them to the East Orange police sta­tion. But any evi­dence may have been lost when the sta­tion suf­fered a flood in 2004.

DNA tests are a most valu­able form of foren­sic evi­dence, but Brooks’ quest for his seems almost a com­edy of errors. In the more than 20 years since he filed his appeal, more than 240 peo­ple have been freed by DNA test­ing, five in New Jersey.

New Jer­sey law allows a pris­oner access to DNA test­ing when­ever that evi­dence becomes avail­able. Until it’s located in Brooks’ case, his guilt or inno­cence remains a mys­tery. That’s not just sloppy record keep­ing, that’s sloppy justice.

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org