A 30-year-old New York man who would have received a 22-year prison sentence after being found guilty of second-degree murder had to be released and his conviction overturned for being held in the wrong prison while awaiting trial.
“It’s a very difficult pill to swallow for someone to be exonerated after being convicted of murder due to a transportation error,” said Kyle Steinebach, a former prosecutor in the Monroe County District Attorney’s Office. response to the decision rendered last week, according to the “New York Post” on Wednesday.
On Monday of last week, Monroe County Supreme Court Justice Stephen Mille was forced to order the release of Terrence Lewis, 31, who had been serving a 22-year prison sentence since 2018 for the murder in second degree of Johnny Washington, 29 years old.
The 30-year-old was however found guilty by a jury of killing the victim during a drive-by shooting in May 2015 in Rochester.
The problem is that while awaiting his trial, Terrence Lewis was reportedly detained in a federal prison in Pennsylvania, where he was serving a separate sentence in an unrelated drug case, according to the American media.
Except that according to the Prisoners’ Agreement Act, passed by the United States Congress in 1970, a prisoner who is accused of a crime in a jurisdiction must be detained there until his conviction, before being able to return to his prison. ‘originally, indicated the “NT Post”.
The former prosecutor who handled Lewis’s case does not understand how the error could have occurred, especially since a request was allegedly made – and granted by the judge – from both parties for the prisoner remains in New York.
“How it happened, I don’t know. But someone made a mistake, which means someone who murdered someone in our community is going to go free. (…) The judge ordered that he stay. Why didn’t he stay?” asked Me Kyle Steinebach, to the American media.
Not to mention the fact that the life of a witness, who would have identified him during the trial, could now be in danger, he raised.
But “the law says what it says,” he added, believing, however, that this type of case should be treated separately.
For his part, the judge stressed that although the administrative decision to move him would have been based on a question of space in the prison, and not by relying on the law, the accused was now entitled to “refuse the indictment with prejudice,” he said in his judgment.
