NYC NOW - September 13, 2023: Midday News

Episode Date: September 13, 2023

Amidst Mayor Adams' warning of 15% budget cuts due to migrant arrivals, the Biden administration stresses its support for New York City. Meanwhile, Sandra Lindsay, the first to receive a COVID vaccine, is now the inaugural recipient of the now updated Pfizer booster, her sixth COVID shot. In Corona Plaza, Queens, the community still grapples with the effects of a street vendor market's closure by NYC sanitation police. Lastly, Leonard Mack, nearly 50 years on, was exonerated in Westchester for a wrongful rape conviction, with The Innocence Project's crucial intervention. Amanda Wallwin, senior policy advocate for The Innocence Project speaks with WNYC's Sean Carlson about the case.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Wednesday, September 13th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. The Biden administration is emphasizing how it's helping New York City respond to the ongoing influx of migrant arrivals. WNIC's Elizabeth Kim says this comes just days after Mayor Adams warned the city could see budget cuts as deep as 15,

if the state and federal governments don't step in. During a roughly 45-minute Zoom call, administration officials sought to counter criticisms that President Biden isn't doing enough to respond to the influx of migrants. They say the administration is looking at potential sources of federal housing and education aid for New York City and a targeted effort to help some migrants

admitted under special programs apply for work permits. But they say they don't know how many of the more than 100 thousand migrants that have arrived in the city fall under such a category. The first person ever to get a COVID vaccine is also first in line for the new COVID booster today. Northwell Health says Long Island nurse Sandra Lindsay will become the first American to get the updated Pfizer COVID vaccine formulation almost three years after getting her first inoculation. Lindsay is now Northwell Health Vice President of Public Health Advocacy. She's also never been infected.

with COVID-19. This will be her six COVID jab overall, including the boosters. CDC advisors say all Americans, six months or older should get the vaccine. The FDA approved the new shot just this week. 75 and cloudy under flood watches and a high risk for rip currents. Chance of showers and thunderstorms this afternoon, heavy rainfall at times and gusty winds, a high near 77, and then we dry out. New York City Sanitation Police shut down. a street vendor market in Corona Queens this summer.

The consequences of the crackdown are still reverberating throughout the largely working-class neighborhood. From WNYC's Race and Justice Unit, Aria Sundaram reports. Just weeks ago, the public square was a bustling hub, where hundreds of people on weekends would huddle around waiting for vendors to hand-press massas, tortillas, grilled sheets of tripe, and fill gorditas with meat and cheese. Now vast stretches of the plaza where vendors used to set up clusters of pop-up tents are empty. Like the 8 by 8 foot square feet, where Lilliana Sanchez used to sell Agua Frescas. Sanchez says her 16-year-old daughter now spends school nights and weekends busing tables to help pay rent.

With her vending business, she says she was just trying to make a living. She's one of doing she's one of over a culture that we're accustomed to do that, to vend, to live of that. She's one of over 80 vendors, mostly immigrants and women

who lost their livelihoods because of the crackdown. The Department of Sanitation says there were ongoing complaints about illegal vending in front of storefronts, block sidewalks, and, quote, dirty conditions.

But the sweep came as a shock to the vendors. They say they'd been cooperating with city agencies for over a year to address concerns around sanitation and safety. The plaza became a foodie destination. TikTokers advertise the cheap eats and homestyle cooking. We got four spots $2.2. We're at Coroner Plaza, and this is what New York eats.

Local market regulars say they miss the cheap, quick meals they'd buy on their early morning commutes. And local businesses say they're seeing a fallout from the lack of foot traffic. Alondra Cardoso owns a hair salon across the store. street from the plaza. Because she says she's seen a dip of $200 or $300 a week.

That's 30% of her sales. But the Department of Sanitation still stands behind their decision, saying the situation in the plaza had become untenable. The Department of Transportation says it's planning to hire an outside company or non-profit

to manage a long-term market in the plaza. But the request for proposals likely won't be released for months. In the meantime, the agency is looking into temporary options for the market to return. Aria Sundaram, WNYC News. I'm Sean Carlson for WNYC.

In a courtroom in Westchester County last week, 72-year-old Leonard Mack got something he'd waited nearly 50 years for, an apology from a district attorney, and a judge's order exonerating him for a rape he did not commit. An investigation by the Innocence Project and the Westchester DA's Conviction Review Unit led to the dramatic court appearance.

Joining us now to talk about the case is Amanda Walwin, senior policy advocate with the Innocence Project. Hey Amanda, welcome to WNMIC. Hi, thanks so much for having me. This case is believed to be the oldest conviction to be overturned based on new DNA evidence. Can you tell us a bit about Leonard Mack

and what happened in his case? Sure. So Leonard Mack, a Vietnam veteran, was arrested, prosecuted, and ultimately convicted for a rape he didn't commit in 1975. Two young women were walking home from high school in Greenberg, New York, when they were attacked, bound, and one of them was raped, while the other escaped and called the police. Based on the victim's description, police were on the lookout for a black man in his early 20s, wearing a gold earring and a fedora. Mr. Mack was pulled over based on that description, and even though his hat wasn't quite right and the rest of his clothes didn't match what the victims had described, he was subjected to a series of suggestive eyewitness identification procedures. Mr. Mack was convicted in 1976, and he spent seven and a half years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. When his case came to the attention of our attorneys at the Innocence Project, we were able to conduct DNA testing on some remaining evidence from the case and it proved conclusively that Mr. Mack wasn't the perpetrator. In fact, we submitted the DNA profile to the national database and we got a hit. And when the person identified was asked about

the crime, he confessed. However, because the statute of limitations for sexual assault was only five years at the time the crime was committed, he can't be prosecuted. Let's talk more about some of the things that led to Mr. Mack's conviction. So much of that conviction. was a lot of what you see in wrongful conviction cases, a big one being, as you said, I witnessed misidentification. Can you tell us more about that? Yeah, sure. In fact, in New York, 36% of wrongful convictions involve a mistaken witness ID. And in this case in particular, the behavior of law enforcement encouraged the multiple misidentifications. Firstly, Mr. Mack didn't match the description of the perpetrator. And when one of the girls pointed out that,

that the clothes were wrong, law enforcement had Mr. Mack change into clothes that the victim picked out and then presented him again for identification. In a photo array, Mr. Mack's photo was noticeably different from all of the other photos. His was the only one showing face and clothing. Finally, one of the girls was legally blind and she had difficulty differentiating between the people in the photo array. So the police instead allowed her to view Mr. Mack through a one-way mirror with the other victim in the room who told her that's him. When that girl still couldn't identify him, Mr. Mack was asked to say something that the attacker had said through a door. Based on that, the girl identified Mr. Mack. And to be clear, none of this is best practice

for eyewitness identification. I'm assuming, and I know your office has said that racial bias played a part here too, right? Yeah, I mean, of course. Even though the evidence pointed away from Mr. Mack as the perpetrator, police didn't make any efforts to identify another suspect. And when they were asked why they didn't do a full lineup for eyewitness identification, they said that it wouldn't be feasible to put together a lineup of black suspects in a basically white town. This kind of tunnel vision is a known consequence of implicit racial bias. And we see it play out in New York. 15% of the population is black, but black people make up 58% of the wrongful.

convicted. And these statistics are driven at least in part by these kinds of investigations that are tainted with racial bias. How do we prevent it from happening in the first place if we do have all of this knowledge about what does happen? Sure. We can strengthen our eyewitness ID laws to also regulate showups where a police officer presents a single suspect to a victim or witness. What we saw in Mr. Mack's case was that best practices weren't used and that affected the ultimate outcome. And most importantly, New York's current post-conviction statute is way behind much of the rest of the country. Right now, there's no pathway through the courts for exoneration for the majority of wrongfully convicted New Yorkers. Most exonerations, like Mr. Max,

occur with prosecutor cooperation. So if the prosecutor in your county isn't interested in revisiting your conviction, that's the end of the road. And it's worth pointing out that it's half of the counties of New York, there's never been a single exoneration. Not all prosecutors are willing to do this work at all. This past session, the legislature passed a bill to address that. It's called the Challenging Wrongful Convictions Act, and it's on Governor Hockel's desk right now. Enacting that legislation is the most important thing we can do to make sure that there aren't more Mr. Max out there waiting for decades to demonstrate their innocence. Amanda Walman is a senior policy advocate for the Innocence Project. Amanda, thanks so much for

joining us. Thank you. Thanks for listening. This is NYC Now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day, for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be back this evening.