http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060921/NEWS07/6092103...

Innocent Peekskill man freed after nearly 16 years in prison

By JONATHAN BANDLER
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original Publication: September 21, 2006)

Timeline
• Nov. 17, 1989: The half-naked body of 15-year-old Angela Correa is discovered in woods behind Hillcrest Elementary School in Peekskill.
• Jan. 25, 1990: Jeffrey Deskovic, 16, a fellow sophomore at Peekskill High School, is arrested on rape and murder charges in connection with Correa's death.
• Dec. 7, 1990: Jury convicts Deskovic on its third day of deliberations.
• Jan. 18, 1991: State Supreme Court Justice Nicholas Colabella sentences Deskovic to the minimum, 15 years to life in state prison.
• Oct. 30, 2005: Eligible for release for the first time, Deskovic is turned down by the parole board.
• Monday: Westchester County lab confirms DNA match to national database between semen evidence recovered from Correa’s body and a different inmate in New York state prison.
• Yesterday: Jeffrey Deskovic walks out of Westchester County Courthouse a free man after judge throws out his conviction and sentence.

WHITE PLAINS — Jeffrey Deskovic walked free for the first time in nearly 16 years yesterday after his conviction was thrown out in the rape and murder of a Peekskill High School classmate.

The 32-year-old was cleared in the death of Angela Correa because another man confessed to the crime after more sophisticated DNA testing linked him to the girl's death. Authorities would not identify the suspect but said he is serving a life sentence for his conviction in an unrelated Westchester County homicide.

"There was a long time that I felt this day would never come," Deskovic said after leaving the Westchester County Courthouse. "It hasn't hit me yet. I'm still waiting to wake up."

Deskovic's conviction and 15-year-to-life prison sentence were vacated in a brief court hearing by acting state Supreme Court Justice Richard Molea at the request of lawyers from the Innocence Project, a legal clinic of Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School that has now exonerated 184 inmates through DNA testing.

"We are here today to correct, as best we can, a terrible injustice that was done to Jeffrey Deskovic 17 years ago," said one of the lawyers, Nina Morrison. "We are humbled by what Mr. Deskovic has gone through."

Assistant District Attorney Patricia Murphy said prosecutors joined in the motion "unequivocally" when it was clear the evidence pointed to someone else, and they planned to charge the new suspect.

The gallery of relatives and law school students associated with the Innocence Project broke into loud applause when Molea then ordered Deskovic's release. The former inmate, wearing a full beard he has grown since converting to Islam, slumped in his chair, hugged Morrison and sat back down before spending a few moments with his mother, aunts and uncles.

Deskovic then walked outside and spoke to the media for nearly two hours, seemingly offering all the things he wanted to say when reporters were ignoring his pleas from prison.

"I'm not standing here before you because the system worked. I'm standing here in front of you despite the system," he said.

He expressed resentment at police who forced him to falsely confess, a prosecutor who did not drop the case when DNA results suggested he should, jurors who ignored the forensic evidence and the judge who could have set aside the verdict but didn't. And he remained frustrated by the years of failure at the appellate level that ended only after the Innocence Project took on his case.

"I hit a wall and became very depressed," he said.

He was asked if he was angry.

"The people I considered to be friends all left me. Prison is isolating. My family has become strangers to me," he said, adding that he lost the chance to marry a woman he loved. "I don't need to answer. Just answer yourself. Would any of you be angry?"

He said he invented defense mechanisms for dealing with prison life, played lots of chess and wrote much of a book, "Inside the Mind of the Wrongfully Convicted."

And after years of lousy prison food, he was looking forward to his first meal on the outside — mussels in fra diavolo sauce.

At Graziella's a few blocks from the courthouse later, he got his seafood and a Neopolitan for dessert — improvised because it wasn't on the menu. Surrounded by his family and several Innocence Project lawyers, he found one vestige of prison life he could not shake. They wanted to put him in the center of the room, but Deskovic chose the end of the table where his back would be against the window so nobody could walk up on him from behind.

His mother, Linda McGarr, said she expects it will take some time for him to get acclimated.

"My prayers were answered. I never gave up hope because I knew he was innocent," she said. "I'm just so happy to have him back. He's gone through so much, and so have I."

Deskovic spoke of never getting back the years he lost, though he managed to get an associate degree and was working toward a bachelor's degree in psychology. He is considering going to law school but only if he can work for the Innocence Project, and might also try to become a psychotherapist. He was looking forward to sitting on a porch last night to watch the sunset, without having to worry about "lights-out" time or where he had to be in prison.

And Deskovic gave condolences to Correa's family, and thanked family members for never rushing to judgment about him, as others had.

"I lost a large part of my life, which makes me a victim. They lost a daughter, my heart goes out to them."

The girl's partially clad body was discovered Nov. 17, 1989, under leaves and twigs in the woods behind Peekskill's Hillcrest Elementary School. The 15-year-old sophomore had been reported missing two nights earlier when she hadn't returned home after going to take pictures for a school photography class.

Police soon focused their attention on Deskovic, then 16, and concluded that he was obsessed with the dead girl and may have been her killer. They claimed he constantly went to them, offering information, and knew some key details that had not been disclosed.

Two months later, he agreed to take a polygraph test. After several hours, when he was convinced he had done poorly, he broke down, telling Detective Thomas McIntyre that he had hit Correa over the head with a Gatorade bottle and smothered her.

Before he finally confessed, he lay crying in the fetal position under a desk.

He said yesterday that he confessed only because the police were not going to let him go, threatened to hurt him and promised he wouldn't be arrested if he said what he did to her.

"I felt my life was in danger," he recalled. "I didn't think they were going to stop until I told them what they wanted to hear."

Before trial, prosecutors learned that DNA evidence from Correa did not match Deskovic. But they went ahead, relying on the confession.

The trial in the fall of 1990 ended when the jury convicted Deskovic of second-degree murder and first-degree rape. The following month, state Supreme Court Justice Nicholas Colabella sentenced Deskovic to 15 years to life.

The prosecutor, George Bolen, who retired last month after a 30-year career in the District Attorney's Office, could not be reached for comment. McIntyre also could not be reached. He retired in Peekskill in the early 1990s.

Peekskill Police Chief Eugene Tumolo, who supervised the department's detective bureau during the Deskovic investigation, yesterday defended his department and McIntyre, and called the situation a "very unfortunate circumstance."

"We're certainly gratified that justice has finally been completed in this case with respect to Jeffrey Deskovic being exonerated and released," Tumolo said.

"I wanted to go on record that this had been a sensitive investigation from the outset. ... There was no coercion, nothing inappropriate or illegal done on behalf of police," he said.

"All the facts were brought forward and presented to the jury at trial," he said. "He was found guilty, which was an unfortunate occurrence. A further unfortunate occurrence was that the appellate judges agreed."

Morrison and Barry Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project, said it was remarkable how quickly the case turned around in just a few months. They credited Westchester District Attorney Janet DiFiore for pushing the county forensics lab to test the DNA samples that had been saved.

DiFiore was not in the courtroom but she said later that prosecutors had fulfilled their legal obligations in the case over the years but that more had to be done.

"This case is really about what our moral obligation is," she said. "This was a very righteously prosecuted and investigated case. It's a very dramatic reminder to all of us that the system is not infallible."

On January 25, Deskovic voluntarily submitted to a polygraph, as requested by the police. He arrived at police headquarters alone at about 9:30am, without either a lawyer, his mother, a friend or family member. He was driven to Brewster, N.Y. by Detectives McIntyre and Levine. The polygraph was administered by police investigator Stephens. Deskovic was questioned sporadically until 5pm, at which time Deskovic asked for Det. McIntyre, after being informed that he had failed the exam. Deskovic "confessed" to McIntyre that he killed Angela, fell on the floor in a fetal position, where McIntyre physically comforted him by holding Deskovic's head on his lap and rubbing his back. During the course of eliciting "background" information, Stephens learned that Deskovic "sometimes hears voices and they make me to [sic] things I shouldn't." The entire day's session was not tape recorded. --p. 2 (p. 5 of the PDF)

...

Tunnel vision continued to operate. As the police became increasingly convinced of Deskovic's culpability, the tactics they employed against him made him appear more guilty in their eyes. At times, they were highly confrontational, accusing him of the crime and sharply rejecting his professions of innocence. On other occasions, they were collegial, seemingly inviting this teenager to play a critical role in their investigation. These tactics, themselves the product of the narrowing police focus on Deskovic, laid the groundwork for a false confession. Ultimately, detectives drove Deskovic to another town and interrogated him in a 10x 10 room for hours against the pressure-filled backdrop of a polygraph test. They proceeded as they did because, by then, they were fully convinced of Deskovic's guilt. That their target was a psychologically vulnerable sixteen-year-old boy, who had no previous experience with the justice system, was of no moment under these circumstances. On the day of the polygraph, they acted for the avowed purpose of getting a confession. The tactics they employed were designed for this purpose and, although these tactics were left largely unexamined by the finders of fact because the interrogation was unrecorded, they succeeded. -- p. 9 (p. 12 of PDF)

...

Deskovic's January 25th statement was far and away the most important evidence at the trial. Without it, the State had no case against him. He would never have been prosecuted for killing Correa. He would never have been convicted. He  would never have spent a day - let alone 16 years - in prison. Reasonable minds can differ about the credibility of the police explanations for sporadically recording Deskovic's January 10th statement. No similar controversy exists about the police rationale for failure to record any of the January 25th polygraph examination. The police simply offered none. -- p. 14 (p. 17 of PDF)

...

Nothing whatsoever prevented the Peekskill detectives from recording the January 25th session in its entirety. The polygraph room was equipped with a monitoring device, which allowed others to listen in an adjoining room. Detectives Levine and McIntyre and Lieutenant Tumulo were present in that room and heard everything through the intercom. There is no indication that the acoustics were anything less than acceptable. The setting thus seems uniquely suited to tape recording. Such a recording would have allowed jurors to hear for themselves precisely what Deskovic said and to comprehend fully the circumstances surrounding his saying it. No recording was made, however, because as Levine and McIntyre testified at trial, they simply left their recorders behind when they left for Brewster. No additional explanation was offered, either by the police or the prosecution. --p. 15 (p. 18 of PDF)

...

The Deskovic case unmistakably demonstrates the desirability of videotaping the entire interrogation of all persons suspected of involvement in a violent felony. Deskovic was questioned by detectives at length, on multiple occasions and over many days. On a very few occasions a voice tape recorder was used, as discussed at length, previously.

The two most inculpatory statements in the case -- the portion, of the January 10 statement during which Deskovic drew his diagram of the three crime scenes and the January 25 polygraph exam -- were not recorded, although the opportunity to record those statements plainly existed. That other statements were recorded, in whole or in part, makes the failure to record the key statements appear deliberate or tactical. By turning the recorder on-and-off, the interrogation process suggests selectivity and opportunity to record only incriminating statements.

It is a generally unrecognized phenomenon that innocent people have confessed to crimes that they did not commit. Videotaping all interrogations of violent felony suspects not only may improve interrogation techniques but, more importantly, will aid the jury or other fact finder to identify a false confession.

Videotaping custodial interrogations is not only feasible, it is being used in an increasing number of jurisdictions as a way to protect the innocent and ensure the conviction of the guilty.

Thanks to the many DNA exonerations over the last decade, the problem of false confessions by the innocent is now well documented. In fact, in approximately 24% of the 180 post-conviction DNA exoneration cases to date, the wrongful convictions were based, in large part, on confessions, admissions, or inculpatory statements that DNA evidence later proved to be false.

Special caution must be exercised when a juvenile is interrogated by the police. Deskovic was only sixteen years-old at the time of his confession. Social science research indicates that juveniles, possessing marked developmental differences from their adult counterparts, are far more susceptible to interrogative suggestibility and thereby to confess falsely to crimes they did not commit. This conclusion is supported by a range of research, which reveals that adolescents have difficulty understanding lexical language, including legal terminology, have a higher susceptibility to negative feedback, present differences in decision-making, present behaviors more often than adults that are considered "deceptive" by interrogators, and have more negative responses to situational risk factors, such as stress, the presence of authority figures, physical custody and isolation, and confrontation, than adults.

These factors in isolation or taken together place adolescents at a higher risk for confessing to a crime they did not commit. Videotaping the interrogation is a prudent way to minimize wrongful convictions founded on false confessions. --pp. 33-34 (36-37 of PDF)