With decades-old misconduct and officers with multiple cases driving high payouts, New York City is on track to spend far more on lawsuits against NYPD officers this year than any other year in recent memory.
“They went to prison, lost all of that time, lost their youth, lost the events in their lives,” said lawyer Bruce Barket. “And the entire time they were there, it was not clear that they were ever going to be released.”
Queens Prosecutors Long Overlooked Misconduct. Can a New D.A. Do Better?
In her first year as district attorney, Melinda Katz has led major culture shifts in the borough. But some hope for more.
Melinda R. Katz is the first new district attorney in Queens in nearly 30 years.Credit.Sarah Blesener for The New York Times
Jan. 27, 2021
The crimes were heinous, the punishments severe: A Latino man was sentenced to 40 years to life for murdering two people at a nightclub in 1993. A Black man was given 25 years to life for shooting a police officer two years later.
But in both men’s trials, officials now acknowledge, a prosecutor from the Queens County district attorney’s office illegally excluded women and people of color from the juries the kind of misconduct that both defense lawyers and some of the office’s former prosecutors say was long overlooked.