Lazaro Burt - Mistaken Witness ID
Burt, Lazaro; murder; NRE: mistaken witness idetification, perjury/false accusation, prosecutor misconduct, withheld exculpatory evidence
N4 [24] "In the case of Lazaro Burt, the detective interviewed an eyewitness to a shooting six days after the crime. The eyewitness was in jail and accessible to the police. The eyewitness told the detective the name of the person who was the shooter, and that person was not Mr. Burt. The statement was written down and placed in the file of the case. But defense made pre-trial Brady motions and the prosecutor made no reference to the statement. The record of the trial shows that the defense did not receive a copy of the statement until the fifth day of the trial, 16 months after the shooting, when the witness could no longer be found. The jury never knew that a person other than Burt had been named as the shooter."
from NRE synopsis (by Maurice Possley):
"In August 1992, 27-year-old Wilfredo Cesario was shot and killed in Queens..."
"Cesario's girlfriend, Lissette Saillant, told police the incident started earlier when a man tried to grope her. When Cesareo confronted the man, he was shot.
"Burt went to trial in Queens County...in March 1994. Saillant testified and identified him as the gunman. On March 9, 1994, Burt was convicted of second-degree murder. He was sentenced to 25-years-to-life.
"After the conviction, Saillant told police she was high when she identified Burt, that she made a mistake, and that she had since seen the real killer on the street -- but she was told that it was too late."*
[* By whom? ]
"In May 2002, another witness, Carl Drummond, identified the real gunman as Jarrett Smith. Drummond had not testified at the trial because he feared for the safety of his family. Based on this new testimony, the prosecution and defense filed a joint motion to vacate Burt's conviction and the charges were dismissed. He was released in September 2002.
"Burt filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of New York which was settled for $248,000. In addition, Burt was awarded $775,000 by the New York Court of Claims."
[All emphases added unless otherwise noted.]