Derrick Hamilton Received $7M For Wrongful Conviction — Transcript

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1. 0:01[Music]
2. 0:21they don't give a rat's ass about
3. 0:24jailing innocent people they do it all
4. 0:27the time
5. 0:28they've done it for centuries and here
6. 0:32we have a story of a man and this is
7. 0:36probably way more common than uncommon
8. 0:39in America for you you know for them to
9. 0:42jail you over petty [ __ ] and also jail
10. 0:45you for things you never did in the
11. 0:47first place just like in the case of
12. 0:50Derek Hamilton and ladies and gentlemen
13. 0:55they got these laws rigged up in some
14. 0:58states they can imprison you find out
15. 1:01you're innocent and you can't do nothing
16. 1:03or get any restitution for it so he's
17. 1:07lucky that he's receiving seven million
18. 1:10dollars in this whole thing because
19. 1:12there are many that are exonerated and
20. 1:15do not get anything barely anything and
21. 1:19and that tells me if you got your laws
22. 1:23rigged up that way where you won't even
23. 1:26pay an innocent person for wrongfully
24. 1:29imprisoned them that tells me you you do
25. 1:32this stuff intentionally what do you
26. 1:34have to lose if you do it nothing
27. 1:37especially if you don't want to pay
28. 1:39nothing and look at it this way 23 years
29. 1:42of free prison labor so for them it's
30. 1:46win-win even if they put you in there
31. 1:49wrongfully this is the New York Times
32. 1:53falsely imprisoned for 23 years now he's
33. 1:57receiving seven million dollars this is
34. 2:00absolutely ridiculous 20 years ago Derek
35. 2:11Hamilton was at his lowest point locked
36. 2:15in solitary confinement for a murder he
37. 2:17insisted he did not commit over the next
38. 2:21two decades he slowly crawled his way
39. 2:23out of the belly of the beasts he became
40. 2:28a prison house lawyer helping his fellow
41. 2:31inmates appeal their convictions
42. 2:3423 years later he finally persuaded
43. 2:37prosecutors to throw out his own
44. 2:40conviction after an eye witness recanted
45. 2:44her testimony she should go to jail to
46. 2:47me if you put somebody in jail falsely
47. 2:49your ass should go to jail Wow once free
48. 2:56he became an activist toiling to get
49. 3:00others he believed were wrongfully
50. 3:02convicted out of jail late last week
51. 3:06mr. Hamilton 54 took on a new role in
52. 3:10the long drama of his fight against
53. 3:14injustice a successful plaintiff city
54. 3:19officials in New York and New Haven
55. 3:22Connecticut agreed on Friday to pay him
56. 3:25a total of seven million dollars to
57. 3:27settle a lawsuit he had filed against
58. 3:31three police officers accusing them of
59. 3:33fabricating evidence against him again
60. 3:36that's something very common in this
61. 3:39country you know cops planting evidence
62. 3:42lying on police report we know is that's
63. 3:46rampant in this country and to me if a
64. 3:50cop is always right then he shouldn't
65. 3:52have to lie on a police report about
66. 3:54anything but it is to me then lying on
67. 4:00police reports is at epidemic levels one
68. 4:05of those officers Louis Scarcella our
69. 4:09retired New York detective has emerged
70. 4:12in recent years as a symbol of wrongful
71. 4:14convictions as numerous cases he handled
72. 4:18have fallen apart under the terms of the
73. 4:22agreement reached on the eve of what
74. 4:25would have been a trial in federal court
75. 4:28in Brooklyn mr. Scarcella admitted no
76. 4:32wrongdoing he is scheduled mr. Hamilton
77. 4:36himself to testify at the trial so
78. 4:40Hamilton is going to get to testify
79. 4:43against a dirty cop that put him in jail
80. 4:46for no
81. 4:47even good that needs to happen more
82. 4:49often for mr. Hamilton to pay out while
83. 4:54substantial was not the point it'll help
84. 4:57my family out financially he said it
85. 5:00doesn't settle what I went through
86. 5:02damn right mr. Hamilton added everyone's
87. 5:07life went on for 20 years
88. 5:10mine stopped in 1991 when he was 28 and
89. 5:15living in New Haven mr. Hamilton was
90. 5:18arrested by mr. Scarcella and the local
91. 5:23police accused of having murdered a
92. 5:26Brooklyn man
93. 5:28Nathaniel cash whom he had known when he
94. 5:33lived in the borough the only eyewitness
95. 5:39against him at his trial in the state
96. 5:43Supreme Court was mr. cash girlfriend
97. 5:47Joel Smith who had given conflicting
98. 5:51accounts to the police about mr.
99. 5:53Hamilton's role in the killing still the
100. 5:57jury convicted him and mr. Hamilton was
101. 6:00sent away in 1992 to what soon became a
102. 6:05series of upstate prisons he spent much
103. 6:09of the next 23 years performing
104. 6:12jailhouse legal work he pored over
105. 6:17trial transcripts filing motions on
106. 6:21behalf of other inmates and occasionally
107. 6:25winning their Appeals at one point in
108. 6:28Attica Correctional Facility he filed
109. 6:32papers challenging his own long stint in
110. 6:35solitary confinement claiming it was
111. 6:38cruel and unusual punishment which it is
112. 6:44in two
113. 6:46and seven Miss Smith went to the
114. 6:49authorities and asserted that mr.
115. 6:50Hamilton was innocent mr. Scarcella she
116. 6:55said had coerced her into testifying
117. 6:59against him so he threatened the
118. 7:01girlfriend so he threatened her and she
119. 7:04got scared and accused an innocent man
120. 7:07Miss Scarcella is the one that belongs
121. 7:10in jail
122. 7:11this seems like nobody else belongs in
123. 7:13jail more than he belongs there eight
124. 7:16years later the conviction review unit
125. 7:19of Brooklyn district attorney's office
126. 7:23asked a judge to toss out mr. Hamilton's
127. 7:26guilty verdict prosecutors noted that
128. 7:29Miss Smith had been unreliable
129. 7:32untruthful and incredible in her
130. 7:35testimony these people got a lot of
131. 7:37nerve there is no credibility among
132. 7:39these damn prosecutors in this country
133. 7:42to buy the point the district attorney's
134. 7:46office was two years into an expansive
135. 7:50investigation of dozens of mr. scarce
136. 7:53Ella's former murder cases looking into
137. 7:56allegations that he had Co hers other
138. 7:58witnesses and had threatened people to
139. 8:02get them to confess that investigation
140. 8:06which is ongoing has led to the release
141. 8:09of 14 Emmys all that behind one dirty
142. 8:12cop
143. 8:12mr. Scarcella don't even deserve to be
144. 8:16called mr. an has resulted in the city
145. 8:20and state paying tens of millions of
146. 8:22dollars to settle lawsuits against mr.
147. 8:25Scarcella Wow
148. 8:29this is a picture of Scarcella right
149. 8:31here a little lousy cheating cop that
150. 8:34put all kinds of folks in jail
151. 8:36that didn't commit crimes and stuck them
152. 8:39with murder charges he should get to
153. 8:42sentence these clients got for murder
154. 8:45that's the kind of sentence he get he's
155. 8:48one of many dirty cops in America the
156. 8:52district attorney's office has however
157. 8:54maintained that mr. Scarcella was not
158. 8:59it has not committed any punishable
159. 9:02conduct okay so lying and falsifying
160. 9:05information and threatening clients
161. 9:08witnesses
162. 9:10that's not punishable and maybe maybe
163. 9:13not in America I could believe that
164. 9:15or broken the law since becoming a free
165. 9:20man mr. Hamilton has labored to overturn
166. 9:24many convictions linked to mr. Scarcella
167. 9:27mr. Hamilton has worked with lawyers as
168. 9:31a paralegal to investigate facts and has
169. 9:34helped draft lawsuits and motions in
170. 9:37support of new trials a few years ago he
171. 9:42founded a group called friends and
172. 9:44family of the wrongfully convicted with
173. 9:48another former inmate Chandi Moses who
174. 9:55was also arrested by mr. Scarcella and
175. 9:58was ultimately freed Wow
176. 10:03the group met for a while at the
177. 10:05brownstone bar and restaurant on Tillery
178. 10:08Street in downtown Brooklyn which mr.
179. 10:12Hamilton operated Shibata
180. 10:16Shakur a third man arrested by mr.
181. 10:20Scarcella and later exonerated
182. 10:23well everybody Scarcella here arrested
183. 10:28they were free you know that just say it
184. 10:31all right there the three former inmates
185. 10:36would sometimes appear at hearings where
186. 10:39mr. Scarcella was on the stand defending
187. 10:42his work they wore hats that said
188. 10:45wrongfully convicted
189. 10:46more recently mr. Hamilton has partnered
190. 10:50with the innocent project in an effort
191. 10:54to persuade the New York Police
192. 10:56Department to change the way in which
193. 10:58the officers conduct interrogations he
194. 11:01has also undertaken a project to
195. 11:05organize former prison inmates to work
196. 11:08together as a voting bloc
197. 11:12or criminal justice reform on Tuesday he
198. 11:15was in court when a Brooklyn judge threw
199. 11:17out the conviction of le Co de Leon in
200. 11:24what was the 15th exoneration linked to
201. 11:28mr. Scarcella detective work mm-hmm so
202. 11:32he spent his whole career just grabbing
203. 11:37random people and throwing murder
204. 11:39convictions on him that's what Scarcella
205. 11:41did damn mr. de Leon spent 25 years in
206. 11:48prison for a 1996 murder committed
207. 11:52during a botched robbery and Clinton
208. 11:56Hill he has long maintained that mr.
209. 11:59Scarcella fabricated his confession I
210. 12:03know what it's like to come home and
211. 12:07have nothing that's why I'm going
212. 12:10mr. Hamilton said before the hearing the
213. 12:14guy who's coming home he needs to know
214. 12:17he's got a friend Wow
215. 12:22so this man right here y'all is the one
216. 12:25that fabricated all of these murder
217. 12:27charges and put these charges on
218. 12:30innocent people and those folks are
219. 12:33finally 20 something years later getting
220. 12:36out of jail this man should have long
221. 12:38been in jail by now for what he did and
222. 12:41I'm gonna say this again if you are a
223. 12:44cop and you falsified a police report
224. 12:48that should be an automatic prison
225. 12:50system I'm sentient sorry about that
226. 12:52automatic prison sentence and ladies and
227. 12:56gentlemen you lucky I'm not running a
228. 12:58place because Scarcella here I would
229. 13:03make sure this man get the same sentence
230. 13:06that those folks that were wrongfully
231. 13:09convicted died I put his butt in jail
232. 13:11for 30 years I would and I would be
233. 13:16without parole
234. 13:22yeah please tell me what you think I
235. 13:23mean I'm really happy for Derek Hamilton
236. 13:26I'm glad he was able to do something
237. 13:28that a lot of people that are exonerated
238. 13:31are not able to do please leave your
239. 13:36comment and subscribe don't forget to
240. 13:39hit on the notification bell and I'll
241. 13:42see you on the next video peace family
242. 13:50[Music]