Kenneth Thompson, a Democratic Brooklyn district attorney candidate, is urging Governor Andrew Cuomo to name a special prosecutor to investigate "questionable convictions" secured in Brooklyn, saying District Attorney Charles Hynes cannot perform "a truly independent review."
Days after Hynes announced that his Conviction Integrity Unit would review about 50 murder convictions relying on the work of a detective whose tactics have come under question, Thompson, a founding partner of Thompson Wigdor, sent the letter to Cuomo. He is seeking either the appointment of a special prosecutor or that the state attorney general review the cases. Thompson said the review should also include other cases that have come under scrutiny, like the now-vacated murder conviction of Jabbar Collins. "It has become clear that considering this troubling pattern of official misconduct and wrongful convictions, District Attorney Hynes is not capable of conducting a truly independent review of his own cases," Thompson wrote in his May 16 letter.
