WALSH ANNOUNCES FOURTH MAJOR POLICY INITIATIVE;
WILL FORM CONVICTION REVIEW UNIT TO COMBAT
WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS

NEW CITY, NY... Judge Tom Walsh announced his fourth major policy
initiative of the campaign, a Conviction Review Unit, which will work to
ensure justice prevails in cases where a wrongful conviction occurs.
Under the initiative, the Rockland County District Attorney's office will
assign a team of three prosecutors and two investigators to review
cases brought before the unit.

"As District Attorney, the number one responsibility is the ensure equal
treatment under the law. If anyone is the victim of a wrongful
conviction, then we have failed in our responsibility," said Judge Walsh.
"My office will work tirelessly to prevent wrongful convictions from
occurring in Rockland County. We must follow the evidence wherever it
leads to ensure justice prevails."

Highlights of the plan are below:

Preventing Wrongful Convictions

Brady Violations – The link between Brady violations and wrongful
convictions has been proven. Judge Walsh’s office will have a zerotolerance policy for withholding evidence of innocence from the defense
and he will hold every Assistant District Attorney accountable who does
not comply.

Compliance with new discovery laws – Judge Walsh will have a team in
place that will be ready to implement procedures for the new discovery
laws that are scheduled to take effect in January of 2020. We will be in full
compliance on the first day he takes office so that trials can really be a
search for the truth and not a trial by ambush.

 Videotaped Confessions – Coerced, false confessions have resulted in
approximately 25% of wrongful convictions where the accused was later
acquitted by DNA evidence. Accordingly, I will encourage our local law
enforcement agencies to record interrogations in all cases, beyond the
ones that are currently mandated by law, in order to avoid coercion and
false confessions. In addition, all confessions taken by any member of the
District Attorney's office will be videotaped.

Case Evaluation – Judge Walsh’s office will implement a step back
approach whereby his office will critically evaluate cases brought to his
office. This will include but not limited to having his entire team of
Assistant District Attorneys trained and well versed in looking for “red
flags” that a confession may be false, misidentification by an eyewitness,
or that an informant is not being truthful.

Studying Wrongful Conviction Cases – Judge Walsh will appoint
independent expert(s) to study what went wrong in any wrongful
conviction case his unit uncovers. This comprehensive review by
professionals in the field will yield all-inclusive report so that he can share
the findings with other prosecutors to further our goal of avoiding the
convictions of innocent people.

Seeking Justice for those Wrongfully Convicted

Creation of a Conviction Review Unit – Judge Walsh will form a unit that
will consist of three (3) prosecutors and two (2) investigators who will be
assigned to reviewing claims of innocence. These investigations can be
initiated by a defense attorney, a defendant, or based upon the findings of
our judicious review of past convictions by the Rockland County District
Attorney’s office.

Access to Automatic DNA Testing – DNA is the gold standard of evidence
which has both successfully led to the conviction of the real perpetrator
and the exoneration of the innocent. Judge Walsh will voluntarily allow for
DNA testing without wasting tax-payers money litigating those requests.
The goal is justice. Therefore, we will actively pursue all roads that will

 allow us to achieve that objective.

Reviewing all Cases based upon non-corroborated evidence – Judge
Walsh’s office will review all cases that have resulted in a conviction
based upon evidence such as tire tracks, bite marks, shoe prints and
other unreliable sources of evidence without further corroboration. The
Judge will be unafraid to reverse a conviction and agree to a new trial
for defendant’s whose cases fall into this category.

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