Re: 12/13/98 - Hit and Run: Wrong Arm of the Law
Hit and Run: Wrong Arm of the Law
By Paul Bass
Published 12/13/01 (sic)
Michael Dearington, New Haven County's top prosecutor, thought he got a bad rap.
A black minister, the Rev. Boise Kimber, kept publicly calling Dearington a racist. Dearington, who's white, successfully prosecuted Kimber for stealing an elderly black woman's funeral money when he ran a funeral home.
You can understand Dearington's frustration. It's unfortunate that a public figure must endure false charges of racism when carrying out the law.
But right now it's hard to feel sorry for Dearington. He's making Boise Kimber's job too easy.
Dearington has the power to request that a man be released from prison. That man, Scott Lewis, is serving a 120-year sentence for murder. Dearington's office prosecuted him on evidence that looked flimsy at the time--and has since been revealed to be beyond laughable.
But Dearington won't move to have Lewis' case thrown out, or even move for a new trial for him or his alleged accomplice, Stephan Morant.
In refusing to admit an error, Dearington has confirmed the suspicion of many people that the criminal justice system is, for too many people, a criminal injustice system. Dearington is confirming that the government will send a black man to jail for life based on no reasonable evidence--and allow a white cop accused of wrongdoing in the same case to walk away from it.
Dearington's office prosecuted Lewis in the spring of 1995 for a notorious drug-related double murder.
The case rested on one witness. We'll call him "Rock," as we did in first reporting on this case two weeks ago. (To read the original story, "The Cop & The 'Killer,'" visit our Web site: <http://www.newhavenadvocate.com>.) Dearington's office had no gun, no blood evidence, nothing to support the story of the witness--who had a long history of lying.
Lewis, pleading innocence, brought on two alibi witnesses, whom the jury didn't believe.
In jail, Lewis convinced the FBI to look into charges that the police officer who arrested him, former city detective Vincent Raucci, framed him. The charge: Raucci was a partner with one of the region's biggest drug dealers. Lewis owed that dealer money. Raucci framed him because of the debt.
Raucci--who's currently a fugitive on unrelated charges--vehemently denies the accusation.
But the FBI, in an exhaustive investigation, found not just the original two alibi witnesses, but several others. They found other witnesses whose testimony destroyed the state's case.
And they found the state's only witness, Rock, telling a new story: that Raucci had invented the case against Lewis and made Rock lie about it. Eventually Rock changed his story back again.
Now you don't necessarily have to believe that Lewis is innocent--although the FBI's investigators did. But you have to question how the state can justify keeping Scott Lewis in prison.
Dearington apologists point out that the FBI's investigation "went nowhere." FBI agents wanted to bring evidence against detective Raucci before a grand jury. But a federal prosecutor said no. Too much of the case depended on one witness--Rock.
There's the Catch-22.
Rock's testimony was considered insufficient for bringing federal charges against the cop.
But it is still considered credible enough to keep Scott Lewis in jail for 120 years.
What's worse, there was other evidence against the cop, but not against Lewis.
There's no purpose in calling Mike Dearington a racist, unless we note that all of us have prejudices.
Dearington did, as required by law, release the FBI report to Scott Lewis. He did prosecute the cop, Raucci, for a separate crime.
But anyone in Dearington's position must recognize the vast divide in America between blacks and whites when it comes to faith in the criminal justice system. Look at our completely different reactions to the O.J. Simpson case.
Dearington for the second time has shown his lack of appreciation for that reality: In the first case, he exonerated--based on his selective review of an inadequate state police investigation--a white East Haven cop in the fatal shooting last year of an unarmed black motorist.
Right or wrong, a majority of blacks feel the system affords them fewer rights, that cops can beat them and the state can convict them for no good reason. Here in New Haven these past few years, we've seen new evidence exonerate four black murder convicts or cast enough serious doubt on their cases to justify new trials.
One convict, Thomas Daniels, actually confessed to a murder he never committed. Why? He said he believed the biased system would convict him anyway, so he lowered his sentence by taking a plea bargain.
Daniels, like Scott Lewis, was a drug dealer. Not a sympathetic figure to a jury.
Dearington should by all means aggressively prosecute accused murderers.
But his office has sent some of the wrong people away. Blacks and Latinos have good reason to doubt they'll receive a fair trial.
That makes it more important for Dearington to take seriously charges like the ones Scott Lewis makes--and that the FBI proved were at least reasonable enough to cast serious doubt on his conviction.
That makes it more important for Dearington to own up to his mistake. The state should immediately free Lewis--either for good, or pending a new trial, if the state has some other evidence beyond one ridiculously non-credible witness.
Otherwise, the next time a clearly guilty African-American hurls a specious "racist" epithet at the prosecutor, it will fall on more fertile ground.
E-mail: <pbass@newhavenadvocate.com>
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