By Dalia Bautista Rodriguez
NEW YORK – New York holds the dubious ranking of No. 3 in the nation with the most “wrongful convictions,” and the exonerations of 283 people.
The legislature is now working on a bill to correct that.
The label of wrongful convictions can be traced back to a corruption scandal that took place in Mount Vernon when a “good apple” came forward to talk about officers corrupting “evidence and framing innocent people.” Westchester District Attorney Anthony Scarpino lost a reelection bid because of it.
NY Assemblymember Dan Quart and Senator Zellnor Myrie introduced a bill, Quart said, “that wrongfully convicted people have a real chance to clear their names in our state courts.” The only other way to turn around a conviction would be “through DNA evidence—even if you are actually innocent.
“My legislation would overhaul the rules governing wrongful convictions, Criminal Procedure Law 440. This long-overdue change would remove the discrepancy between defendants who are found 
guilty at trial and those who plead guilty, force judges to fairly consider claims of actual innocence, and create a right to counsel for those with a claim to wrongful conviction. The bill will also allow people with convictions for offenses that are no longer crimes to clear their records if the offense is later decriminalized,” said Quart.
The evidence of DNA stems from the case of People v. Tiger, in which a nurse, named Natascha Tiger, was wrongfully convicted of causing harm to her 10-year-old patient. Instead of taking the harsher penalty, she took a plea deal of four months and it was later found that the burn marks were a reaction to the medication.
“An RN license may be temporarily suspended or permanently revoked—either can affect your ability to get a job,” according to a study, which also notes, “If a nurse lost her license for patient abuse or neglect, for example, she would probably not be eligible for hire as a nursing assistant.”
The Court of Appeals confirmed her guilty plea, and with lack of DNA evidence, Natascha Tiger was never able to clear her name.
Another case of wrongful conviction was the “The Central Park Five,” which gathered plenty of public attention. Five teenagers “in the wrong place at the wrong time” were wrongfully convicted of raping a woman, assault, murder, and robbery.”
The then teenagers were arrested in connection with the rape and assault of a white female jogger, and eventually convicted in the case—the real rapist eventually admitted to committing the crime after the wrongfully convicted had served 13 years in prison.
Rather than facing harsher penalties, innocent people plead guilty to crimes they did not commit.
In Texas, “80 percent of people exonerated in the state had previously pleaded guilty,” and in New York almost all cases result in a plea bargain.
“Reforms to New York’s post-conviction law will ensure that people who have been wrongfully convicted, as in the Mount Vernon case, finally have a legal remedy to have their convictions overturned and their records cleared. If New York cares about protecting the innocent, we must act to reform Criminal Procedure Law 440,” said Quart.
Dalia Bautista Rodriguez is a third year- transfer at UC Davis and majoring in Community & Regional Development. She is originally from Guadalupe, CA.
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