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Donald Kagan's murder conviction was questioned in 2014, when retired Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Frank Barbaro admitted his background in civil rights activism made him biased while he presided over Kagan's trial.
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The article reveals a tragedy of the criminal justice system unlike any other: a convicted killer at last granted a hearing on his innocence, only to have his bid for freedom overseen by a judge soon removed from the bench because of dementia. Nelson Cruz was 16 when he was accused of killing a man in the streets of Brooklyn. Sent away for 25 years to life after a brief and flawed trial, he never gave up trying to prove his innocence. Two decades later, he got his first real shot to argue his case and gain his freedom: Judge ShawnDya Simpson had granted him an evidentiary hearing, one in whic...
Ruling on Murder Case by Judge Suffering From Dementia Will Stand, Court Says ProPublica 3/5/2021 ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. A New York judge has rejected the claim of a Brooklyn man who said his bid to have his murder conviction overturned was mishandled by a judge later found to be suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Judge Raymond Rodriguez of State Supreme Court said he found no evidence that his former colleague’s illness had affected her decision to deny the man’s mot...