A state judge on Friday overturned the double murder conviction of a Queens man who has been in prison for more than three decades, ruling prosecutors improperly withheld key evidence from his 1995 trial.<\/p>\n
Judge Michelle Johnson\u2019s order from the bench released Allen Porter, 53, on $400,000 bond while the Queens district attorney\u2019s office decides whether to hold a new trial. Porter was arrested on April 23, 1992 in connection with the drug-related murders of Charles Bland and Sherrie Walker at the Woodside Houses.<\/p>\n
Johnson wrote that prosecutors had suppressed key evidence in Porter\u2019s trial, including the a witness statement identifying another suspect as the gunman, as well as the names of five witnesses that were never shared with the defense.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy any account, the amount of evidence that was withheld is nothing short of substantial and even alarming,\u201d Johnson said from the bench.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not just the amount of undisclosed evidence that is alarming, it is the people\u2019s continued attempts to justify it and explain it away. \u2026 The cumulative violations cannot be understated.\u201d<\/p>\n
The reversal is the result of a remarkable friendship between Porter and investigator Jabbar Collins, which began around 1998 at Green Haven Correctional Facility when both were incarcerated. Collins was exonerated of his own murder conviction and released in 2010. The men embraced after the hearing, before Porter was taken for processing ahead of his release.<\/p>\n
The ruling in Porter\u2019s case represents another blemish for the legacy of late Queens DA Richard Brown, who served from 1991 to 2019. Over the past decade, a series of murder convictions have been overturned due to his office’s failure to turn over exculpatory evidence and other improper actions, costing taxpayers tens of millions in lawsuit settlements.<\/p>\n
\u201cAllen Porter\u2019s case confirms everything that has come out in other cases, that this is how business was done under Brown, that this was not an anomaly,\u201d said Karen Newirth, one of Porter\u2019s lawyers.<\/p>\n
In her decision, Johnson cited a range of other evidence helpful to the defense that the Queens DA\u2019s office failed to turn over.<\/p>\n
Indeed, the volume of undisclosed evidence was so great, Porter\u2019s legal team had get his original trial lawyer Edward Schulman to sign five sworn statements from 2021 to 2025 confirming he hadn\u2019t previously seen newly disclosed notes, prosecution memos and other records.<\/p>\n
In addition, the lone eyewitness to identify Porter as the shooter, Jacqueline Aviles, recanted in 2021, saying she had been coerced by detectives, court records show.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe record now before this court shows that Mr. Porter’s trial was built on false testimony, withheld evidence and a pattern of concealment,\u201d Newirth said during a hearing in the case in December. \u201cAt every critical point the prosecution sought to win, not to do justice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Queens DA spokesperson Brendan Brosh said the office was reviewing the judge\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n
The judge\u2019s decision capped Porter’s decadeslong campaign to prove his innocence with Collins\u2019 help. The two were regular worshippers in the chapel of Green Haven Correctional Facility and became friends.<\/p>\n
When Collins won his release for his own wrongful conviction in Brooklyn in 2010, he promised Porter and Porter\u2019s mother he \u201cwould not forget him,\u201d Collins recalled.<\/p>\n
\u201cAllen Porter lost most of his life due to a conviction built on coercion, concealment, and constitutional violations,\u201d said Collins, who is now president of a private investigations company, Horizon Research Services. \u201cToday he walks free, but the injustice done to him cannot be undone.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1991, Porter was 19 years old and a small-time drug dealer in a Woodside Houses crew led by Ernest Jarvis.<\/p>\n
The two victims were found riddled with bullets in a car during a grim two-year stretch in the housing development that saw five homicides as warring drug gangs struggled for control.<\/p>\n
Porter was arrested four months after the murders but not brought to trial for four years.<\/p>\n
The evidence relied heavily on a lone 17-year-old eyewitness, as well as two other witnesses, who claimed Porter plotted the killings.<\/p>\n
Porter was convicted and sentenced to 45 years to life. He landed at Green Haven, where he met Collins.<\/p>\n
As he worked to get his own conviction overturned, Collins became a skilled litigant in prison and began assisting other prisoners.<\/p>\n
Once he was out, Collins filed lawsuits starting in 2013 against the NYPD and the DA\u2019s office seeking Porter case records. In 2018, the DA\u2019s office finally turned over 2,500 pages of documents.<\/p>\n
The lone eyewitness said she’d been coerced by detectives.<\/p>\n
It emerged that one witness who said Porter planned the murders only decided to cooperate with authorities after being threatened with a charge of accessory to murder. And another witness would have discredited that person\u2019s account.<\/p>\n
Further disclosures revealed the nickname of a new possible suspect, and five previously unknown witnesses, including a man who had said he \u201csaw it [the shooting], didn\u2019t see Al [Porter] there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a crystal clear Brady violation,\u201d said Charles Linehan, another of Porter\u2019s lawyers and the former head of the Brooklyn DA\u2019s Conviction Review Unit. \u201cOn its face, it is exculpatory material and certainly should have been turned over.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson then ordered an evidentiary hearing \u2014 essentially a trial of the trial \u2014 which stretched from Oct. 31 to Dec. 10.<\/p>\n
Porter\u2019s mother, Lula Ward-Brewer, eagerly awaited her son’s release after the hearing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful, beautiful day. I have been waiting 34 years for this day. I am relieved and grateful I can take him home with me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A state judge on Friday overturned the double murder conviction of a Queens man who has been in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":{"0":"post-117719","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-queens","12":"tag-queens-headlines","13":"tag-queens-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}