Harry Lewis’ lawyer said his case demonstrated “serious, egregious, persistent and persistent prosecutorial misconduct.” What consequences will happen next?
Harry Lewis’s conviction is overturned by New York judge for the first time in 25 years
A New York judge has overturned the conviction of Harry Lewis, who served 25 years in prison for an innocent murder.
Harry Lewis should never have been convicted.
That was the conclusion a New York judge reached on April 27, leading him to throw out his botched murder conviction. Lewis knows he’ll never get back the 25 years he spent in prison for a murder he always claimed he didn’t commit.. But he said that day in court took a weight off his shoulders.
“I felt overwhelmed. I felt relieved. I felt like I could breathe,” he told USA TODAY.
Lewis said the hearing also shed new light on evidence that could help his case.. A re-investigation by the district attorney’s special division found that prosecutors paid thousands of dollars to the only teenage witness and her mother, and that two other witnesses told him after the conviction that Lewis was not involved in the 1993 murder-for-hire plot.
Lewis’ attorney, Ron Kuby, said prosecutors had not previously disclosed these payments or the witnesses’ accounts. The New York County District Attorney’s Office said there was “no basis to dispute” Mr. Kuby’s claims, but could not confirm them because the attorney who prosecuted Mr. Lewis declined to participate in the reinvestigation.
“That speaks volumes for this court,” Justice Robert Mandelbaum wrote.
Kuby called the case an example of “serious, egregious, persistent and persistent prosecutorial misconduct” that legal experts say is linked to hundreds of wrongful convictions across the country.
Wrongly convicted people are usually able to secure cash settlements as some measure of justice, but the lawyers who helped keep them behind bars rarely face the consequences. Prosecutors have immunity from civil lawsuits, and some say they need this protection to carry out their duties without fear.
Asked whether anyone would be responsible for prosecuting Lewis, District Attorney Alvin Bragg said, “The judge’s ruling and our papers, in a sense, speak for themselves.”
“Rather than looking back, we’re much more forward-looking and focused on the lessons we can draw here going forward,” Bragg told USA TODAY.
What happened to Harry Lewis?
Days after Emanuel Felix was killed in 1993, Lewis was arrested as the shooter by a 13-year-old neighbor, according to court documents. Although her testimony was repeatedly contradicted, other witnesses corroborated Lewis’ alibi, and even though there was no physical evidence linking Lewis to the crime, Lewis was convicted and sentenced to the maximum sentence.
“I didn’t deserve that,” he said. “They took my youth. They took my life. I could have died every day.”
Lewis fought his conviction. As his applications were rejected one after another, he sank into depression, but said he never gave up hope.
Although he was released on parole in 2019, he said he still doesn’t feel free. Lewis said he rarely went anywhere other than work and hid, fearing he would be involved in another mistaken identity incident.
“When I got home, I still felt disconnected,” he says. “I didn’t know how to be a father, husband, son, brother.”
What Lewis didn’t know was that prosecutors had provided the alleged witness and her mother with more than $17,000 in “cash, apartments, and legal assistance” for 15 years leading up to the trial and 15 years afterward, court documents said.
It was information that his lawyers likely used to undermine her testimony. The Supreme Court has ruled that prosecutors must disclose all material and advantageous information in their possession to defendants, known as the Brady Rule.
But Kuby said the trial prosecutor, identified as former Assistant District Attorney Helen Sturm, never shared this information with the defense. The trial prosecutor “refused to voluntarily discuss the case” during the reinvestigation., the district attorney’s office wrote.
And in 2002, a “major drug trafficker” told former Assistant District Attorney John Dormin that he had hired someone to kill Felix, a statement that was separately corroborated by another member of the same drug organization, court documents say. Again, Kuby said prosecutors never told Lewis’ then-lawyers about this key evidence until a reinvestigation began in 2024.
The assistant district attorney who handled the case recalled talking with Lewis’ defense attorney at the time, but said prosecutors “have not released any record of what happened or what didn’t happen.”
Dormin did not respond to requests for comment from USA TODAY. Sturm declined to comment on past lawsuits, saying he did not have the “memory” to discuss them without reviewing the relevant documents.
“I have read the article and suffice it to say that many of the statements contained in the article regarding the Lewis incident do not match my recollection,” she said in a text message to USA TODAY. Sturm declined to say which article or statement he was referring to.
Prosecutorial misconduct related to hundreds of wrongful convictions
Samuel Gross, co-founder of the National Registry of Exonerations, said the accusations against Mr. Sturm and Mr. Dormin by Mr. Lewis’s lawyers (while withholding evidence) are the most common form of prosecutorial misconduct. In 2020, the registry reported that more than 30% of wrongful conviction cases involved prosecutorial misconduct, but Gross said that percentage is likely to be even higher.
“It’s been deliberately hidden, and in many cases, it’s successful,” Gross said. “So there are absolutely, certainly cases where we didn’t know about the misconduct and yet it occurred and led to a wrongful conviction.”
Detecting this type of fraud often takes a lot of effort. Lewis’ conviction was reversed after a major reinvestigation, The incident began with a report from a detective working on an unsolved case. Sharena Howard, director of post-conviction justice, said they had to interview dozens of witnesses and review thousands of documents to support these claims.
“That’s always a challenge,” Howard said.
The case against Lewis has some similarities with another wrongful conviction from the same era and shares key figures, It was discovered after a similar effort. In November 2023, after a reinvestigation by the District Attorney’s Office and the Innocence Project, Jabar Walker was found not guilty of the 1995 murders.
The Innocence Project said the investigation uncovered “a number of issues.” These include that one key witness told investigators that Walker was not the shooter, and that prosecutors failed to disclose that another witness who identified Walker as the shooter was eligible for housing benefits. According to the Innocence Project, Sturm made it clear to jurors that the latter witness “received no consideration for her testimony.”
“This is the kind of content that we routinely disclose now,” Bragg said.
Even “repeat offenders” are rarely subject to disciplinary action.
Bennett Gershman, a law professor and legal ethics expert at Pace University, said that although “a significant number of prosecutors are repeat offenders,” disciplinary action remains rare.
According to the registry, only 4% of prosecutors with wrongful convictions receive any form of disciplinary action. Only two prosecutors were charged with crimes related to high-profile misconduct cases, and both received minimum sentences.
“If you’re not going to go after a prosecutor who’s currently a prosecutor, and a lot of active prosecutors are notorious criminals, I think it’s very unlikely that you’re going to go after a prosecutor who’s long retired,” Gershman said.
A New York state commission created in 2021 to investigate this type of misconduct (modeled after a similar commission for judges established in the 1970s) has received nearly 500 complaints. So far, only one investigation has been completed and a recommendation has been made.
In his more than 40 years of practicing law in New York, Kuby can recall only one prosecutor in the state who faced serious consequences for suppressing evidence. Although he is skeptical that the new commission is capable of changing this, he is more optimistic.
“The commission is finally ready and will soon be working at full speed,” said Bill Bastuk, who has advocated for expanding the practice to other states., Including California and Illinois.
Wrongful conviction cases seek justice, but prosecutors are protected
Wrongly convicted people may seek justice in the form of compensation by suing the jurisdiction that imprisoned them. New York City alone has paid out more than $1 billion to hundreds of people who were exonerated, the Registrar’s Office reported in March.
National District Attorneys Association President Timothy J. Crews said prosecutors are immune from civil lawsuits related to their official duties.
“This basically ensures that prosecutors can carry out their duties independently,” Cruz said. “Because in our role, we often have to make difficult and unpopular decisions, and I think we have to be able to do that without worrying about being personally sued for doing that job.”
But Cruz, the longtime district attorney in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, said those protections don’t mean prosecutors can escape responsibility. He said if illegal activity is uncovered, the district attorney’s office should be empowered to investigate old cases to determine whether it was part of a pattern.
“I just think we have that responsibility,” he said.
Kuby said civil lawsuits can also provide “obviously limited liability” to bad actors.
“This is just money in a civil case, but it also provides an opportunity to compel the person responsible for this case to answer questions under oath,” he said.
Mr. Kuby said he has not yet discussed the possibility of litigation with Mr. Lewis. Lewis said he is focused on moving forward. He is looking forward to the birth of his second grandchild. Meanwhile, Lewis said he is living with mental health issues stemming from his incarceration.
He said those who wrongfully prosecuted him should be punished in some way, but “that will never happen.” Through faith, he found a way to forgive.
“What would Jesus do? In other words, would he forgive his accusers?” he said. “yes.”
