"On the afternoon of April 1, 2005, Ross returned to his apartment building in Crown Heights after stopping at the bank and the post office, carrying cash and two money orders he had just purchased. As he stepped into the elevator, two men followed him inside. During the short ride up, they robbed the man of his cash and took two blank, unsigned money orders for $542.77 and $9.48, then fled."
"More than a month after the incident, Ross was informed that one money order had been cashed at an electronics store. Ross used the same post office to obtain money orders every month, and while the money orders were virtually untraceable, a teller who knew Ross agreed to search for the tracking numbers. Ross identified Windley as one of the robbers in a lineup on June 7, 2005."
"Despite his claims of innocence, Windley was convicted of second-degree robbery in March 2007 and sentenced to 20 years to life because of prior felony convictions that led to his adjudication as a persistent felony offender, increasing the mandatory term of incarceration. All subsequent appeals were denied."
Kenneth Windley spent nearly two decades incarcerated for a 2005 Crown Heights robbery he maintained he did not commit. The crime involved the theft of cash and two money orders from a 70-year-old resident. Windley was identified through a police lineup by the victim over a month after the incident. He was convicted of second-degree robbery in 2007 and received a 20-years-to-life sentence due to prior felony convictions classifying him as a persistent felony offender. Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez moved to vacate his conviction, resulting in his exoneration. The case highlights issues with eyewitness identification reliability and the consequences of conviction enhancement based on prior criminal history.
#wrongful-conviction #eyewitness-identification #exoneration #criminal-justice-reform #persistent-felony-offender
Read at Brooklyn Paper
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