Holding Me Captive is project on the makings of New Haven’s wrongful conviction crisis by Yale’s Investigatie Reporting Lab.
AboutCase ProfilesLaw-Enforcement Tactics ExplainedStudent ReportingHolding Me Captive is project on the makings of New Haven’s wrongful conviction crisis by Yale’s Investigatie Reporting Lab.
AboutCase ProfilesLaw-Enforcement Tactics ExplainedStudent ReportingCase Profiles
Scott Lewis was framed for murder by NHPD detectives. He was exonerated in 2015.
On May 10, 1995, Scott Lewis was convicted of two counts of murder and sentenced to 120 years in prison. After Lewis maintained his innocence for 20 years, a federal judge found that Lewis had been wrongfully convicted. In February of 2014, Lewis was released from prison, and on August 5, 2015, he was fully exonerated. “At 5:30 a.m. on February 24, 2014, Scott Lewis took his first step as a civilian in more than twenty years,” Caroline Wray wrote in The New Journal. “The sun would rise in an hour. His arms, carrying the box of legal papers, started to tremble.”
Released from Prison
Reporting:
Documentary: 120 Years
‘Scott Lewis: Innocent Man’
The Thing About Winter
Reporters involved:
Matt Nadel, Lukas Cox, Sammy Westfall, Caroline Wray
Witness Coercion/Pre-Interviews
Failure to Conduct Adequate Investigation
Failure to Supervise/Discipline Officers
Suppressed, Manipulated, or Destroyed Evidence (Brady Violation)
Use of Recanted/Dubious Testimony from Eyewitnesses and Informants
Stefon Morant was wrongfully convicted of felony murder. He was granted a full pardon in 2021.
On June 8, 1994, Stefon Morant was convicted of two counts of felony murder and sentenced to 70 years in prison. For 27 years, Morant maintained his innocence, and on October 29, 2021, the Connecticut Board of Pardons and Paroles granted him an absolute pardon. “I missed my family. I needed to come home,” he said in Keerthana Annamaneni’s piece in The New Journal. “I didn’t want to be in a cage.”
Released from Prison
Reporting:
Coming Home Convicted
Reporter involved:
Keerthana Annamaneni
Witness Coercion/Pre-Interviews
Faulty Eyewitness ID
Failure to Conduct Adequate Investigation
Failure to Supervise/Discipline Officers
Suppressed, Manipulated, or Destroyed Evidence (Brady Violation)
Gaylord Salters was sentenced to 40 years for a 1996 shooting. Although his sentence was recently reduced, he continues his fight to be exonerated.
In 2003, Gaylord Salters was sentenced to 40 years in prison for a 1996 New Haven shooting, a crime he insists he did not commit. Nearly twenty years later, in June of 2022, a Superior Court Judge issued a reduced sentence allowing Salters to go home. Even after his release, he continues to fight for an exoneration. As he told Laura Glesby in a story for The New Haven Independent, “I am against good cops and good prosecutors turning a blind eye to the corrupt cops and prosecutors.” He described the culture of New Haven police and prosecutors as “institutional protectionism.”
Released from Prison
Reporting:
Gaylord Salters Comes Home
Reporter involved:
Laura Glesby
Witness Coercion/Pre-Interviews
Failure to Conduct Adequate Investigation
Suppressed, Manipulated, or Destroyed Evidence (Brady Violation)
Use of Recanted/Dubious Testimony from Eyewitnesses and Informants
J'Veil Outing remains incarcerated for a murder he insists he did not commit.
On March 29, 2006, J’Veil Outing was sentenced to 50 years in prison for murder; since then, he has maintained his innocence but remains incarcerated. No forensic evidence has tied him to the crimes, and two witnesses recanted their testimony against him. However, his conviction has been upheld repeatedly. In Teigist Taye’s Yale Daily News feature on the case, Outing said, “I played no part in this crime at all… They just straight up set me up, I don’t even know why.”
Still Incarcerated
Reporting:
Fair Trial or Foul Play?
Reporter involved:
Teigist Taye
Witness Coercion/Pre-Interviews
Faulty Eyewitness ID
Use of Recanted/Dubious Testimony from Eyewitnesses and Informants
Daryl Valentine was convicted of a murder he insists he didn’t commit. Although his sentence was commuted, Valentine has not been exonerated.
On October 16, 1991, Daryl Valentine was charged with a murder he has maintained he did not commit. He was sentenced to 100 years in prison for the crime. In May of 2022, the Connecticut Board of Pardons and Paroles commuted his sentence, allowing him to be immediately released, but not clearing his record. During his time in prison, Valentine told Ko Lyn Cheang, in her New Haven Independent story, "I lost my grandmother on Christmas day." His first stop after being released was his grandmother's grave.
Released from Prison
Reporting:
Why Is This Man Still In Prison?
Reporter involved:
Ko Lyn Cheang
Witness Coercion/Pre-Interviews
Faulty Eyewitness ID
Ineffective Defense Counsel
Failure to Supervise/Discipline Officers
Suppressed, Manipulated, or Destroyed Evidence (Brady Violation)
Use of Recanted/Dubious Testimony from Eyewitnesses and Informants
Maleek Jones remains incarcerated for a murder he insists he did not commit. He hopes a federal court will vacate his conviction.
On March 29, 1995, Maleek Jones was convicted of murder and sentenced to 65 years in prison. He has maintained his innocence for nearly thirty years and hopes a federal court will reopen his case. In a New Haven Independent piece about Jones, Ram Vishwanathan wrote, “The stakes are higher than ever: while some distance from the Connecticut justice system might offer him better luck, he is soon running out of legal remedies. ‘I’m at the end,’ [Jones] said, his voice cracking.”
Still Incarcerated
Reporting:
Inmate Brings Innocence Quest To Last Stop
Reporter involved:
Ram Vishwanathan
Witness Coercion/Pre-Interviews
Ineffective Defense Counsel
Suppressed, Manipulated, or Destroyed Evidence (Brady Violation)
Use of Recanted/Dubious Testimony from Eyewitnesses and Informants
Nearly two decades after being convicted of a murder he didn’t commit, Vernon Horn was released and fully exonerated.
In January 1999, three men robbed a New Haven deli, killing a customer and wounding a cashier. On April 19, 2000, a jury convicted Vernon Horn of the crimes. At his sentencing, Horn insisted that he was innocent, but he was sentenced to 70 years in prison. While incarcerated, he wrote a letter to his future lawyer: “Justice delayed is justice denied...I am innocent and suffering... At the present moment I am on a hunger strike and will rather end my life [than] to suffer this way.” Finally, nearly two decades after his conviction, in April of 2018, Horn’s charges were dismissed, and he was exonerated.
Released from Prison
Reporting:
Righting a Wrongful Conviction
Witness Coercion/Pre-Interviews
Faulty Eyewitness ID
Ineffective Defense Counsel
Failure to Conduct Adequate Investigation
Failure to Supervise/Discipline Officers
Suppressed, Manipulated, or Destroyed Evidence (Brady Violation)
Ryan Myers was convicted of a murder he insists he didn’t commit. He was released after accepting an offer that made him ineligible for exoneration.
On October 24, 1992, Ryan Myers was sentenced to 100 years for a murder he insists he did not commit. Myers successfully appealed in 1998 and accepted an Alford plea—a guilty plea in which he technically maintained his innocence but acknowledged that the prosecution's evidence would likely result in a guilty verdict at trial. His sentence was reduced to manslaughter, and he was released on August 21, 2006. But the terms of his plea deal required him to relinquish his right to a full exoneration. In a short essay called “Murdered Youth,” by Will Sutherland, Myers writes that the criminal justice system “murdered a whole life cycle” in New Haven.
Suspected Wrongful Conviction
Reporting:
Murdered Youth
Reporter involved:
Will Sutherland
Witness Coercion/Pre-Interviews
Failure to Conduct Adequate Investigation
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