After spend­ing 15 years in a New York prison for mur­der, Roy Brown has been exon­er­at­ed through DNA evi­dence and is free. Brown is the eighth per­son in New York to be exon­er­at­ed due to DNA evi­dence in the past 13 months, more than in any oth­er state dur­ing the same peri­od.

While in prison, Brown con­duct­ed his own inves­ti­ga­tion of his wrong­ful con­vic­tion and found doc­u­ments incrim­i­nat­ing anoth­er man in the mur­der of Sabina Kulakowski. The doc­u­ments point­ed to Barry Bench, a vol­un­teer fire­fight­er whose broth­er had lived with Kulakowski until the months before her death. Earlier tests con­duct­ed by Brown’s attor­neys found a con­nec­tion between one of Bench’s close rel­a­tives and the genet­ic code lift­ed from the sali­va on the vic­tims’ night­shirt. In 2003, five days after Brown mailed Bench a let­ter accus­ing him of the crime, Bench jumped to his death in front of an Amtrak train. His body was lat­er exhumed to con­firm his genet­ic link to the crime.

Attorneys from the New-York based Innocence Project rep­re­sent­ed Brown in the pro­ceed­ings that result­ed in his free­dom. His attor­neys said that an inves­ti­ga­tor in the case ini­tial­ly dis­missed a fel­low-fire­fight­er’s sus­pi­cions about Bench’s involve­ment in the crime because the inves­ti­ga­tor knew Bench and thought him inca­pable of killing any­one. In addi­tion, one of the nation’s lead­ing foren­sic odon­tol­o­gists, Lowell Levine, who ana­lyzed the bite marks on Kulakowski’s body before tri­al, told the dis­trict attor­ney at the time that the one mark he could inter­pret ​“exclud­ed” Brown as a sus­pect. Prosecutors then decid­ed to not ask Levine to file an offi­cial report, but relied on anoth­er expert — a local den­tist — whose tes­ti­mo­ny helped to con­vict Brown.

​“I’m sor­ry it’s tak­en such a long time for you to come to this day. I’m hap­py for you and your fam­i­ly,” Judge Mark H. Fandrich told Brown after pros­e­cu­tors joined the defense’s motion to release Brown. After he was freed, Brown not­ed, ​“Changes have got to be made, man. They say the wheels of jus­tice move slow­ly, but you know what? The wheels of jus­tice are flat.” Brown’s attor­neys say that he has no mon­ey, does not know where he is going to live, and suf­fers from hepati­tis C and cir­rho­sis of the liv­er.

(New York Times, January 24, 2007). Murder cas­es such as Brown’s can result in death sen­tences. However, New York did not have a cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment law at the time of this crime. See Innocence. Read a Press Release about this case issued by the Innocence Project.

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