Wrongful Incarceration: Black Man Freed After Over 16 Yrs

New York City man, Tullie Hyman, is to be set free on Tuesday from the Eastern Correctional Facility after a false accusation landed him in jail.

False accusation of Shaquana Ellis was enough to send an innocent Black man to jail for a crime he never committed. The Queens Borough native was convicted in 2002 in connection with the murder 45-year-old Maria Medina.

According to the New York Post, Tullie Hyman will be walking out of the Eastern Correctional Facility a free man after serving more than 16 years because of a wrongful conviction.

Prior to this development, Hyman was to serve a 21-year jail term for the murder of a Far Rockaway tenant activist, Medina. But in July the witness account was discovered to be false after more than a decade. The court then threw out the case and ordered the release of Hyman.

Tullie Hyman is gentle/kind & not full of anger after 16 yrs in prison for murder he didn’t commit. Hear his story #abc7ny #freeman pic.twitter.com/Hw0yp3UU6k

— Lucy Yang (@LucyYang7) October 11, 2016

In March 2000, Maria Medina found herself at the scene of a gunfight when a stray bullet hit and  killed her. Hyman was indicted after a lone witness, Shaquana Ellis, testified against him. Ellis mentioned in her testimony during the trial that Hyman was responsible for firing the gun which led to the death of Medina.

According to the New York Daily News, Ellis retracted her testimony. She disclosed that she was threatened by an unidentified person to implicate Hyman.

This  the case was definitely not given the required attention: no thorough investigation conducted, no protection offered to the only witness. But for this, the false testimony would have thrown an innocent person in jail for over a decade. What prevented the investigators from serving justice at that time? It is quite clear that the prosecutors were just in a hurry to put the innocent man into jail just because they were under wide-spread impression of the idea that the people of his color are guilty by default. Why don’t we hear so much about the cases of wrongful incarceration of white people?

Source: The Root