The Return of Richard Rosario

The murder of 17-year-old Jorge Collazo was a big deal at the time, and cops wanted to close it. And they did, convicting Richard Rosario. The only problem was that Rosario wasn’t the killer. After 20 years, he was freed due to the efforts of the Innocence Project, after the TV show Dateline made Rosario a 12-episode cause. After the system failed him on every level.

Now he’s suing* the city and its cops. But there was a conspicuous hole in the narrative of how the conviction of an innocent man went so very wrong.

Police officers were “under pressure to close the case quickly,” the complaint continues, and “deliberately manipulated witnesses and prosecuted Rosario for the murder despite lacking any reliable evidence of his guilt.”

Rosario also accuses officers of fabricating evidence, failing to properly investigate his alibi, and failing to investigate the accomplice in Collazo’s murder. “Because defendants’ case against Rosario was based on false and fabricated identifications, any investigation into the true perpetrator would have undermined their evidence and risked exposing their misconduct,” the 38-page complaint states.

On a more substantive level, there were three witnesses who identified Rosario as the shooter. one of whom allegedly told another person that he said he didn’t see the shooter, but after the cops were done with him, could make an ID.

On the flip side, Rosario had 13 alibi witnesses whom the cops failed to investigate. He presented two alibi witnesses at trial, one of whom was his baby mama, and was convicted. It’s not as if this wasn’t brought up a great many times already, and smacked down by every court up to the Second Circuit, which concluded that Rosario had received “meaningful” representation, all that New York law required.

The complaint goes straight at the cops, who did everything possible to close the case, assure a conviction of the Rosario and ignore the fact that there was an excellent likelihood the real killer would never be found.

Rosario’s wrongful arrest, prosecution, and incarceration were not inadvertent. They resulted from Defendants’ unconstitutional and tortious acts, which included fabricating, coercing, and/or improperly suggesting identifications of Rosario by purported eyewitnesses to the crime, suppressing material exculpatory evidence, failing to investigate Rosario’s alibi, and failing to investigate alternative murder suspects.

And, indeed, every allegation in that paragraph is accurate. But notice anything missing?

Rosario maintained his innocence at trial and testified in his own defense. His defense
counsel called two alibi witnesses but failed to investigate the other witnesses. The jury
convicted Rosario of murder based on the false and fabricated identification testimony.

That’s pretty much all there is as to the trial of Richard Rosario. So the cops did what cops do, and instead of putting in the effort to check out Rosario’s alibi witnesses, they put in the effort to twist the witnesses they had to make sure they would point at the right guy. Just as they do in every case.

The cops don’t work for the defense. They work for the people, and failed the people by collaring the wrong perp, which meant the killer was still out there. But as far as the people know, or care, any warm body will do. Three ID witnesses, despite the absence of any hard evidence, is what judges typically call “overwhelming.” His conviction neither surprised nor bothered anyone (except Rosario and the people who knew he was innocent) at the time.

But where was his defense lawyer, doing the investigation the cops would never do? As this was a murder charge, Rosario was given a series of free lawyers from the 18b homicide panel. They got paid squat and had no resources available to them. Not that it would have mattered a great deal, given that most private investigators are ex-cops who couldn’t investigate their way out of a paper bag while on the job and didn’t get any better after they did their 20 and out.

Rosario would not have been convicted but for the Defendants’ misconduct. Sanchez and
Davis would not have identified Rosario in the absence of the Defendants’ improper coercion or suggestion. Rosario’s conviction was caused by Defendants’ misconduct in conducting witness interviews, their failure to disclose that the eyewitnesses could not identify Rosario without suggestion, and their suppression of Torres’s exculpatory identification procedure. Defendants failed to investigate Rosario’s alibi, ignored and suppressed exculpatory evidence, and conspired to prosecute him without probable cause.

The individual Defendants’ actions were caused by the conduct of police supervisors and
policymakers who condoned and facilitated the use of these unconstitutional techniques.

This could be any case. Every case. The complaint alleges that Rosario would have been acquitted “but for” the systemic failures here. But that’s not quite true. It also took the judges who treated this case like a “garden variety” Bronx murder, refusing to entertain any doubt that the prosecution might have gotten the wrong man because they needed to close the case and put a warm body in the defendant’s chair. The prosecution believed Rosario was the killer, and the judges were satisfied that they knew what they were doing.

It also took a system that gave the appearance of a defense without the ability to mount a serious defense, without the money to pay for competent investigators to make up for the cops’ refusal to do the job they owed society.

Richard Rosario’s conviction demonstrates how easy it is to believe, and get it completely wrong, and never lose a moment’s sleep over the failure of the system to blow it.

The response is that of the tens of thousands who march through the courtroom doors, how many Rosarios are there? What would it cost to take each of their cases seriously, doubt the cops and prosecutors, give them a legit shake at defending themselves from a cop setup?

The answer is invariably the same: the price of a dysfunctional system is the 20 years stolen from the life of Richard Rosario. And sad tears aside, people are pretty good with that, as long as Rosario isn’t them or their loved one.

*Rosario is represented in the suit by the firm of Neufeld, Scheck, & Brustin. If the name sounds familiar, that’s the same Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck of Innocence Project fame. One of the side benefits of being the good guys is that you get your slice of the damages on the back end. There’s nothing wrong with this. Even good guys have to eat.

15 thoughts on “The Return of Richard Rosario

  1. Skink

    Baby PDs make their bones working cases that are over their head, or they stay and never make their bones. I hear the problem, but what’s your solution?

    1. SHG Post author

      No baby PDs were harmed in the trial of this matter. The 18b panel are private lawyers doing indigent defense. The 18b homicide panel are the more experienced lawyers from the regular panel. The homicide panel includes some of the best lawyers in town as well as some major duds. Which a defendant ends up with is the luck of the draw, but what he won’t end up with is a baby PD.

      1. B. McLeod

        So, “resources” prevented defense counsel from interviewing all but two of the 13 alibi witnesses? Did counsel not have a telephone? No access to the mail? Feet?

        Sure, there are “resource” problems, but there is also what is variously known as “falling down,” “phoning it in,” or simply, “not giving a crap.” Resource problems are external problems. Absence of willingness to do the basic work necessary to defend the case is a different problem. Nobody has to take a bricks-without-straw file, but for those who do, the obligation to work the case is not excused.

          1. B. McLeod

            Funny story. Long ago, when I was a newbie, working for a free legal aid program, a family law client left the state with the kids and none of the proper notices to the court or ex spouse (a huge no-no in those days). The last person to handle a hearing for that client had not withdrawn our office’s appearance (big mistake), so we learned about it when we (and thereby, the client) received service of the unhappy motion filed by the ex spouse.

            I had to skip trace that client, and I did it within a few days by following some payment streams. The program director was impressed and came to see me to congratulate me and ask how I had found the client so quickly. With perfect deadpan delivery, I told him I had just rounded up all the telephone directories the library had in its multistate directory collection, and had gone through the states in alphabetical order, calling everyone with the client’s last name until I found her, fortunately, in Arkansas (so, it was actually plausible). Long distance was big bucks back then. This would have been a considerable problem for the program budget, and I could see from the director’s stricken expression that he was really concerned about how the office would deal with it financially. So, I did not prolong that one, and luckily, he was more relieved than angry when I explained how I really had found the client (there was one long distance call involved, but that was it).

            1. SHG Post author

              Ordinarily, I trash lawyer war stories because we all have them, they’re mostly fascinating only to the person telling them, and they use up too much of my bandwidth to justify their recounting. But yours? It was so interesting, so remarkable, that I just couldn’t deny every reader the opportunity to see it and feel for the misery you endured as a young lawyer. And appreciate how good their own life is.

            2. Billy Bob

              Thanky you for posting McCloudy Day’s war story. We found it fascinating as well, and were unable to put down till finished.
              Finally, there is no such thing as a *free lunch*, and no such thing as a *free legal aid program*. If it’s for free it’s for me, and usually it’s GarBage. Free legal aid usually means you get what you pay for, which is poor representation, if not the Big RunAround.. Go straight to Jail. (Probation if you’re lucky and the lady judge takes a shinin’ to ya!) Yes, the ladies are taking over, and it’s not a pretty picture.

              Select all images with a storefront? Hey, after six beers, I’m unable to select a whorefront. So scru your Captcha.

    1. SHG Post author

      The solution is the same this time as it was the last thousand times I’ve written about it. Fund it adequately. Defend it zealously. Take it seriously. Deal with it honestly.

      1. Frank

        And it doesn’t take many wrongful conviction payouts to make honest funding of indigent defense the better deal.

          1. B. McLeod

            Right. Voters generally favor underfunding (or not funding) defense, and also generally favor paying people who have clearly been wrongly convicted. But they probably don’t grasp how one helps lead to the other.

            Probably a lot of people are only familiar with the TV police investigations, where the genius forensics detectives tirelessly and unerringly follow the physical evidence to the lead-pipe cinch, 100% certain identification of the actual perp. That’s why they expect the system should work OK with no defense counsel, and payouts for wrongful convictions should be minimal. But that’s just TV. People seem increasingly out of touch with the basic point that TV is not real.

  2. James L. Smith

    This would have never happened in Manhattan either. I watch _NYPD Blue_ and all the reruns, religiously, and Dets. Sipowicz and Simone always go by the book, wink wink nod nod.

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