Brooklyn man’s murder conviction vacated after 16 years behind bars

A man serving 25 years for murder saw his conviction thrown out Friday after a reinvestigation by the Brooklyn district attorney determined he wasn’t the shooter. 

At a Brooklyn Supreme Court hearing, prosecutors from DA Eric Gonzalez’s office moved to toss 52-year-old Arvel Marshall’s conviction for the July 2008 shooting of Moustapha Oumaria based on video evidence supporting his years-long claims of innocence they said was ignored at his trial. 

Citing failures by prosecutors, bias by the judge, and a “lack of any real effort” by Marshall’s public defender “to actually obtain and watch the video,” Charles Linehan, chief of Gonzalez’s conviction integrity unit, said the case represented “a catastrophic failure of our system at every corner.”

“You can’t ensure public safety if the public won’t have faith in the system,” Linehan told state Supreme Court Justice Matthew D’Emic in asking him to vacate Marshall’s conviction and dismiss his indictment. 

At trial, prosecutors alleged Marshall, then 35, fatally shot Oumaria, 22, as he sat with friends on the stoop outside his Crown Heights home because he was jealous of the victim’s relationship with his girlfriend.

The footage that led to his vacated conviction shows two young men at the crime scene matching descriptions of the assailants provided by three eyewitnesses. One appears to pull out a gun before the shooting and then the pair flee, according to Gonzalez’s office.

Prosecutors initially denied the video existed after Marshall was indicted and then said they couldn’t play it due to technical difficulties. Instead, they presented screen grabs showing the two young men on the street.

Instead of listening to his client, Marshall’s lawyer, Alan Stutman, sided with the prosecution when they said the footage was irrelevant. He told the judge he had nothing to do with his client’s repeated requests to play the tape for the jury.

“Defendant’s protests during trial — some in front of the jury—that one of the two males seen in the stills fit the shooter’s description were ignored. Defendant was correct,” prosecutors wrote in court filings Friday.

Marshall’s current lawyer, Justin Bonus, said the video made clear his case never should have made it before a jury and called out faulty ID procedures that placed him in an NYPD photo lineup despite witness descriptions of the shooters as teenagers.

“He’s always said he’s innocent; he had an alibi,” Bonus said.

The lawyer said that when his client cracked the case against him, retired Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Vincent Del Giudice derided it as “wishful thinking” and told him to “shut up” and “act like a gentleman.”

Del Giudice, who prosecutors said “abandoned the role of a neutral arbiter” and revealed his bias, sent Marshall away for 25 years after he was found guilty of the killing. He was ineligible for parole until 2033.

The judge, who could not be reached for comment, retired last month after criminal justice advocates campaigned against his reappointment based on his harsh sentences. He was embroiled in numerous controversies during his 22 years on the bench — including vaping in the courtroom during a 2018 murder trial for a child’s killing.

Appeals courts have reduced 19 prison terms Del Giudice imposed by a staggering 503 years, twice the rate of his contemporaries.

Reached by The News for comment about his role in the wrongful conviction, Stutman, Marshall’s now-retired trial lawyer said, “These things happen” before cutting himself off.

“I have nothing to say,” Stutman said before hanging up. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

After D’Emic declared Marshall a free man to a rousing chorus of cheers and applause from his loved ones, Marshall thanked him, waved to his family, and embraced his lawyer.

“They knew I was innocent. They knew where to prove my innocence. So they try to keep it under the table. They was hoping I’ll just shut up and just accept everything that they did to me, and I said, No, I’m gonna fight,” Marshall told reporters.

In comments to reporters before the hearing, DA Gonzalez said he’d met with Marshall on his last day waking up in a prison cell and would now see him “start his new life as a man who has gotten back his name.”

“The system has failed our society again, and this case is one of systemic failures, of the court system, of prosecution, of defense, of policing,” Gonzalez said. 

Marshall said clearing his name wouldn’t bring back what he lost out on while he was behind bars for 16 years. He attended his mother Mildred’s funeral in 2015 in shackles. 

He said he hoped prosecutors could still bring Oumaria’s killer to justice for the sake of his family. 

“The good people of the justice system really need to stop ignoring what the corrupt people are doing,” Marshall said. 

Originally Published: August 9, 2024 at 8:13 p.m.