Jose Muniz - Police Misconduct

Muniz, Jose ; weapon possession/sale; NRE: plea, no crime, perjury/false accusation, police officer misconduct, withheld exculpatory evidence, misconduct that is not withholding evidence

NRE synopsis (by Maurice Possley):

"In March 2015, a guard accused 24-year-old Jose Muniz, an inmate at Auburn Correctional Facility...ofi llegally possessing a shank.

"The guard, 33-year-old Matthew Cornell, reported that Muniz, who was serving a sentence for criminal possession of a firearm and attempted burglary, was caught carrying the weapon during a search.

"Muniz contended that he was innocent and that the weapon had been planted. On March 26, 2015, however, he pled guilty to attempting promoting of prison contraband. He was sentenced to 1-1/2 to three years in prison, to be served consecutirve to the sentence he was serving for the weapon and burglary convictions.

"In December 2016, the Cayuga County [DA] Jon Budelman revealed that Cornell admitted planting a weapon on a different inmate at Auburn prison." "Because of Cornell's admission, the inmate involved in that incident was not charged with a crime. However, Budelman then asked a Cayuga County...judge to vacate the convictions of Muniz and four other inmates, all of whom had pled guilty even though they claimed at the time that the weapons had been planted. Cornell was the guard who said he found the weapons in all five cases.

"On January 19, 2017, Muniz's conviction was vacated and the charge was dismissed.

"That same month, the convictions of Thomas Ozzborn, Sean Gaines, Donnesia Brown, and Naythen Aubain also were vacated and the charges were dismissed."

[ Matthew Cornell is hardly the only c.o. at Auburn (and elsewhere) who routinely planted weapons on inmates (see Department of Corruptions section.)]

[There are yet more cases in which a correctional officer helped to convict innocent people. Also see Thomas Bianco, where an Auburn lieutenant claimed at trial that the man he saw with the subsequent murder victim had -- like Bianco -- 'high cheekbones' -- despite previously stating that he had never seen the man's face because the latter had his back to him. And then we have the case of Kin-Jin ('David') Wong. There, it was a c.o who coached a witness to provide more damning testimony.]

[All emphases added unless otherwise noted.]