TUGELA: Thanks for posting the link to the appeal - I had forgotten about that. Those three appellate judges must have been named Moe, Larry, and Shemp. Trust me I could write several pages on the decision.
On the first page they said the victim call CL at 11:45AM. She called him, not the other way around. That could have clearly been established with the phone records. Why do you think a 14 year old girl called a 19year old kid? Do you think she felt safe with him? He couldn't resist the opportunity for a roll in the hay, and he made the biggest mistake of his young life.
Sure he wanted to hide it because of her age. What would you have done, and what do you think you would have done if you learned that after you had sex with her she was murdered?
Why would he murder her if she willingly gave him free sex?
Moe, Larry & Shemp said CL had scratch marks on his arm. That is debatable. The assumption is the victim scratched him while fighting for her life. I never heard any evidence her fingers were scratched for skin tissue. If so, WHY NOT as that would have been the clincher to prove guilt.
Then the DA put on an expert from Oceanography giving an expert opinion as to when the body was dumped in the shallow water. When her body was found her bra was dry. That was no salt content on the bra.
Then there is the attorney that worked part time for the DA and signed an affidavit opening him up to perjury that he jogged by the location every morning at 730AM and DID NOT see a body. Why would a lawyer lie to protect a young man he never met? He wouldn't say he might have been mistaken, he said he was sure there was no body there when he passed earlier that morning.
Then there is that classic BS from SCPD Homicide when they testified that CL told them: 'You don't have me good for this one.', thereby implying guilt without admitting to it. I call that the "half-lie". Moe, Larry, and Shemp went right for it because they didn't have the courage to over turn the conviction.
And why didn't the SCPD try to ID the second sample of DNA?
Where did the parolee that some believed killed JM go. He was on parole and he was a registered informant for SCPD Narcotics. They couldn't/wouldn't find a parolee that disappeared for more than 3 months?
BTW, I have a copy of the lawyer's affidavit and I can tell you he clearly said the body wasn't there when he passed the location at 730AM. He is a respected attorney practicing on Main Street, Northport, NY.
Then there was the manager of the 7-11, not some 'random' location as you suggested in your post. He told the investigators that he saw JM at the store after 100AM. That would change after he was re-visited by detectives. What did they do to threaten him to change his story? The young lady was found dead at about 920AM. You know as well as I do that such a crime would have gone viral throughout the neighborhood within hours. Do you really believe he was mistaken when he gave his initial account to the detectives?
This young lady, after leaving CL went to another party across the water where she was later found. She had an older drug addict boyfriend that threatened to hurt her if she didn't give back a necklace he took from his mother to give to JM. The cops never bothered to find him. I wonder why?
When AG Cuomo's office sent two of his investigators to interview CL in the prison to elicit a statement from him that his long time friend/inmate, Marty Tankleff told him he told CL that he killed his parents, CL refused to do so when he could have bargained for relief of his sentence of better conditions. He refused to lie for them. Cuomo never put that in his final Tankleff report, but he did say other inmates came forward and said Tankleff told them. Even one nut case that met MT for the first time and MT told him he killed his parents.
The judges made a big deal of CL being seen driving in the area where JM lived. But we knew that, didn't we? So what was the big deal.
What this feckless judges do is decide the case before they read the facts and then make everything fit their decision. They are no better than the cops and the DA. It is one of the greatest myths of the criminal justice system that you will get a fair shake in the appellate court.
When my son in law filed his appeal I showed it to several lawyers and even a judge known as a hanging judge. They all read it and said it was adequate for a reversal, and they all added not to expect the appellate court to do the right thing because they don't have the guts to do it.
Just because the appeals judges did not agree with you is no reason to insult them.
We know she called him, we don't know WHY she called him. You are assuming that she called him to have sex, but there is no evidence for that. Perhaps she called him for some other reason and that reason led to her death? Obviously under those circumstances he would not want to say the real reason, and instead would give some more benign version that was more favorable to him.
If there was a problem with the time of death estimate, the defence had the opportunity to point that out. Apparently they did not. That leaves the victim dead within 2 hours of calling the accused. In other words there is not much opportunity for anyone else to have done it given that the accused would have had to drive out to her and have sex as well. So he did this, and then she was almost immediately killed for no reason and dumped by some mysterious stranger who left nothing?
The 7-11 is a random location for the purposes of that case. Just because the manager saw the victim does not mean that the accused was not sitting in the car around the corner (or wherever). Remember that at 1AM it would still be inside the window for the homicide. It does not exonerate the accused, even if the manager subsequently changed details. All it does is make the managers account of seeing her unreliable, and that does not help the accused in the slightest.
The claim of a defence witness that the accused was somewhere else at the time means nothing considering that another witness was alleging that the accused tried to get her to make an alibi. How can you exclude the possibility that the same thing happen with the other witness, only in that instance the attempt was successful?
You only have the accused's claim that the sex was consensual. You are assuming that it was simply because it could not be proven otherwise. Incidentally, as a former LEO you are (or should be) well aware that scratches can arise in a struggle from things other than fingernails. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
An affidavit from some lawyer who claims to not have seen a body while jogging is irrelevant. Unless he was specifically looking for a body he could easily not have noticed it. When you run you become focussed on what is front of you and engrossed in your thoughts. It is a sort of tunnel vision. Unless something specifically attracts your attention you could easily miss it. So, if he
SAW something, it would be relevant, but the fact that he
DIDN'T is irrelevant since he simply may not have noticed it even if it was there.
If the victim went to another party then surely you think that someone would have noticed her there? Where were are all these people at trial? There is no mention of that - where does that allegation come from? Perhaps the story that "she went to another party" was another made up claim to provide an indirect alibi to the accused? Did you consider that possibility.
Again, regarding Cuomo's investigators, you are going on the say-so of CL that he saw these guys. Maybe he didn't. Jailhouse snitches are unreliable, but it works both ways. Just because he claims he refused to snitch doesn't make him more credible. It just makes him more manipulative.
Here is a more plausible alternative: There was some sort of conflict between these two, she called to try to resolve it. But instead there was a fight and she got her head bashed in. Now it is cover up mode. Creating alibis and reasons why it wasn't me. Happens all the time. All of the evidence presented by both sides, as best as I can tell, would be consistent with something like that happening. It is beyond dispute (apparently) that he met up with her, the call she made, the presence of his DNA inside her, evidence of her presence in his car, and evidence of his car on her body. So, he meets up with her for unknown reasons, sex happens (which may or may not be consensual) and then she is dead, all within the space of 2 hours. There is evidence after the fact of an effort to conceal the nature of this visit. A reasonable person on hearing this in a jury would conclude after being given the two options of (a) the accused killed her; or (b) a random stranger killed her without leaving any evidence, that on the balance of reasonable probability that the accused was in fact the murderer. They would not need to know the specifics of what happened, all that is required is that there is motive and opportunity outside of which it is unlikely that someone else was the killer.
You are given a fair shake at the appellate level, BUT you have to follow the law since it is the law the judges will rule on, they don't retry the case. Also, in trial the accused has the benefit of presumption of innocence and the prosecution has to prove the case. When you get to the appellate division there is a presumption of guilt and the
appellants have to prove the conviction was in error. So it is the reverse of the trial and the onus is on the convicted person to prove that evidence in trial was faulty or present new evidence that proves innocence.
