Dewey Bozella - Perjury / Prosecutor Misconduct

Bozella, Dewey; murder; NRE: perjury/false accusation, prosecutor misconduct, police officer misconduct, withheld exculpatory evidence, misconduct that is not withholding evidence, witness tampering or misconduct interrogating co-defendant

Suggestibility issues

[901:908]; Dutchess Cty. Ct. 10/14/09; conviction vacated, due to Brady violation

Murder (2nd degree) of elderly woman, who came home to find her apartment being burglarized by several men. Court vacated conviction due to withholding of Brady evidence. Actual murderer fingered Bozella; also, he as well as another convicted felon got reduced sentences for 'cooperating' in the prosecution of Bozella.

K21 [405] "In 1977, after an evening playing bingo, ninety-two-year-old Emma Crapser was returning to her home in Poughkeepsie...when an unidentified assailant attacked her, severely beating and suffocating her. In 1983, Dewey Bozella, eighteen-years-old at the time of the incident and with a history of petty crime, was convicted of Crapser's murder. Prosecutors had no physical evidence linking Bozella to the murder and relied entirely on testimony from jailhouse informants who testified in exchange for reduced sentences, were admittedly under the influence of drugs at the time of the crime, and who provided inconsistent accounts. In 2009, private attorneys who took on Bozella's case pro bono found old notes from a retired police lieutenant that implicated another man, Donald Wise, in the crime. Bozella's attorneys then filed freedom of information requests and discovered a taped police interview of a witness who told police that he watched Donald Wise planning a robbery near the Crapser apartment and described how Wise had already killed another woman. Police found a fingerprint at the scene of the crime that would eventually be positively matched to Wise, who had been subsequently convicted [406] for a near-identical murder in the same neighborhood. After Bozella was granted a retrial in October 2009 in light of the evidence, prosecutors dropped the charges against him."

from NRE synopsis (by Stephanie Denzel):

"Police suspected the involvement of brothers Lamar and Stanley Smith, as well as Dewey Bozella, who had a record of petty crime and was known to hang around the area. The Smith brothers initially denied any knowledge of the crime, but they changed their story when the police lied to them, stating that Bozella had accused them of the murder.

"Lamar then told police he had seen Bozella and another man, Wayne Mosley, on the front porch of the victim's house trying to break in. Stanley told police that he had seen Bozella, Mosley, and a third man in a nearby park before the burglary.

"Although Mosley and Bozella denied involvement, and the first grand jury refused to issue an indictment* against Bozella, the prosecution persisted. Prosecutors eventually promised Mosley immunity for his testimony against Bozella, as well as immunity for perjury and a reduction of a jail sentence he was then serving. They finally obtained an indictment and tried Bozella for the murder in 1983."

[* A grand jury refusing to indict is a rare occurrence indeed.]

"Mosley, Stanley Smith, and Lamar Smith, who received the [DA's] support for his parole in exchange for his testimony, all testified at Bozella's trial and, in December 1983, a jury convicted Bozella..."

"Bozella's first conviction was overturned because the prosecutor used his peremptory challenges during jury selection to remove black jurors. He was tried again in December 1990.

"At Bozella's second trial, Stanley Smith refused to testify, as he had recanted his prior statements. Nonetheless, a jury again convicted Bozella..."

"Lamar also later recanted his testimony and, in 2007, an investigation by Bozella's attorneys revealed several witness statements that contradicted the testimony provided at trial, and that had never been provided to the defense.

"Based on the prosecution's suppression of evidence, Bozella's conviction was overturned, and in October 2009, the prosecution decided not to retry him and dismised all charges. Prior to trial, Bozella had refused a plea bargain, and during his incarceration refused to admit guilt in four parole hearings. Bozella filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in 2010 that was settled for $7.5 million."

[All emphases added unless otherwise noted.]