Convicted Killer Seeks New Trial, Saying Ex-Detective Pressured Witness
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Source: New York Times
By ALAN FEUER DEC. 29, 2016
Louis Scarcella, a former police detective, has been accused of multiple instances of misconduct. The sole eyewitness against Shawn Williams in a 1993 killing says Mr. Scarcella coerced her to say she saw Mr. Williams with a gun at the murder scene. Credit Anthony Lanzilote for The New York Times
Lawyers for a Brooklyn man imprisoned for more than 20 years in a fatal shooting asked a judge on Thursday to grant him a new trial, saying that the sole eyewitness against him now says she was pressured to identify him by a former detective who has been accused of falsifying evidence in several other cases.
The imprisoned man, Shawn Williams, was convicted of murder in August 1994 in the shooting of a neighbor in the lobby of a building in the Crown Heights neighborhood.
While there was no forensic evidence or motive introduced at Mr. Williamss trial, the jury heard from Margaret Smith, a college administrator who lived across the street. Ms. Smith testified that she had seen Mr. Williams at the scene with a gun at his waist the night of the killing, even though it was dark out and she was standing 100 feet away, looking down from her sixth-story window.
But in an affidavit filed along with Mr. Williamss request for a new trial, Ms. Smith recanted that account. She said she had not seen Mr. Williams that night, but had been coerced into naming him as the killer by the former detective, Louis Scarcella.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/nyregion/shawn-williams-convicted-killer-seeks-new-trial.html?_r=0