New York Attorney General Letitia James slammed for handling Daniel Prude murder after Cuomo investigation

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New York Attorney General Letitia James was praised for conducting a thorough investigation which led to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s resignation on Tuesday. Now questions arise as to whether she was equally diligent in pursuing the case against police involved in the death of a black man in their custody last year in Rochester.

This month, James’s office released a 165-page report documenting allegations of sexual harassment against Cuomo by 11 women. Cuomo has denied improper conduct.

The report and fallout shed light on James and renewed criticism of his office’s investigation into the March 2020 death of Daniel Prude, a black man who died a week after being arrested by Rochester police on a street in the city in freezing weather. night during a mental health episode.

James’ office failed to persuade a grand jury to indict the officers who hooded Prude’s head and pressed her naked body against the street. His death sparked weeks of protests against the police treatment of blacks.

“What the Andrew Cuomo investigation shows is that when his office wants to devote resources to conducting a full investigation, they know how to do it,” Prudes family attorney Elliot said. Shields. “If his office had put the same attention and determination in securing a charge against the police officers who killed Daniel Prude as they did to bring down Andrew Cuomo, they would have obtained an indictment.”

Andrew Cuomo speaks at Albany on April 17, 2020.File Matthew Cavanaugh / Getty Images

James’s office did not respond to requests for comment on criticism of his handling of the Prude case. After the grand jury decision, James said his office had “presented the strongest case possible” and acknowledged that the outcome could disappoint many.

Critics say the lack of an indictment is a black eye on the office of James, a progressive attorney general who openly challenged the National Rifle Association and former President Donald Trump and was unafraid to call Cuomo who had approved her as attorney general for his management. of the state’s response to Covid-19 in nursing homes. James said the number of nursing home residents who have died from Covid-19 may have been underestimated by up to 50%.

These accomplishments and the investigation into the sexual harassment of Cuomo only underscore the deep disappointment some feel about his handling of the Prude case.

New York defense attorney Rebecca J. Kavanagh said James “managed to defeat an indictment” in the Prude case, “tweeting that she did all she could to get it. justice for Mr. Prude and that most people seemed to buy it wholeheartedly. “

Kavanagh compared James’ actions to those of Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who failed to obtain an indictment against the officers who killed Breonna Taylor in Louisville.

“In essence, she did exactly what Daniel Cameron did in the Breonna Taylor case, but because she is a Democrat seen as progressive, it appears her actions have not been called into question,” Kavanagh said. . Maybe the case was not as high profile as that of Breonna Taylor or Attorney General James had created this image of herself as a trailblazer chasing the NRA and Trump, but regardless , she basically threw the case against the cops who killed Daniel Prude in exactly the same way Daniel Cameron did the cops who killed Breonna Taylor, and no one really blinked. “

Cameron said two of the officers who shot Taylor were justified because her boyfriend shot them first.

Taylor, 26, was killed in her Louisville apartment in a botched police raid. A grand juror who spoke publicly said the jury had no opportunity to review the homicide charges and accused Cameron of using the grand jury “as a shield to deflect accountability and responsibility “and to sow” more seeds of doubt in the process “.

No one has been charged for his death. The grand jury indicted a former Louisville detective involved in the raid, Brett Hankison, with indiscriminate endangerment for shooting blind in another apartment with people inside. He pleaded not guilty.

In Prude’s case, critics say the blame lies with James as a low burden of proof doesn’t make it particularly difficult for prosecutors to win charges.

“The grand jury system is set up for prosecutors to present whatever evidence they choose to present,” Kavanagh said. “A defendant can testify, but that’s it. When the police aren’t charged with killing people, it’s because the prosecutor chose not to present a strong case.”

Video of Prude’s meeting with the police was released in September after Shields obtained it through a request for public recording. Shortly thereafter, James met with Shields and Prude’s family in Rochester, then called a grand jury to examine the evidence. Emails subsequently made public showed that city officials attempted to cover up the video.

Kavanagh and Shields said prosecutors overseeing a grand jury investigation into Prude’s death undermined their case with the testimony of Dr. Gary Vilke, a professor at the University of San Diego medical school who testified regularly on behalf of the police.

Michael Schiano, the attorney for one of the officers who was at the scene when Prude was arrested, told the New York Times: “The prosecutors presented the case which we would have presented anyway. if there was a jury trial.

Vilke said the agents’ actions had no impact on Prude’s breathing. Official police reports indicated that Prude died of a drug overdose, but an investigation by the Monroe County Medical Examiner listed the mode of death as homicide caused by “complications of suffocation in the body. part of physical restraint “and cited PCP as a contributing factor.

Joe Prude, brother of Daniel Prude, right, and his son Armin, standing with a photo of Daniel Prude in Rochester, NY, September 3, 2020.Ted Shaffrey / AP

Both the medical examiner and the attorney general’s expert concluded that Prude was in a state of excited delirium due to her drug use. There is no universally accepted definition of excited delirium, which is used to describe a person’s agitated and aggressive behavior due to drug use or mental illness.

According to a report from the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization in Washington, the term is applied disproportionately to blacks and often used to justify police brutality. The day before his meeting with the police, Prude had been released from a hospital, where he had undergone a mental health check-up, said his brother, Joe Prude.

James’ office has asked the grand jury to review the charges against only three of the seven police officers at the scene, according to the court record released in April. The names of the officers, as well as those of witnesses and jurors, have been redacted. Grand jury proceedings are generally secret.

Officers who testified before the grand jury said they used force because Prude did not follow their instructions to stay on the ground and placed the hood over her head because they feared contracting Covid-19 from Prude, who spat and told them he had the coronavirus. Police body camera video showed that after officers restrain Prude, some of them stood around him laughing and smiling as he spoke incoherently while handcuffed and hooded. At one point, Prude asked for a gun, video shows.

James, whose office took over the investigation, said his office had “presented the strongest possible case.” But those close to Prude believe James and his office disappointed them and the public.

“These officers will now not incur any criminal liability,” Shields said. “When they’re around making merciless jokes and laughing while he’s sitting there dying, I mean, I don’t see how you can watch this video and determine that there isn’t of criminal liability. But this is the case presented by his office. “

Shortly after failing to secure an indictment, James proposed new criminal justice reform law, the Police Accountability Act, which she said would make it easier to prosecute police officers.

“In New York, our laws have essentially given police a blanket defense to use force in interactions with the public, making it extremely difficult for prosecutors to prosecute officers who have abused that power,” James said. in May when she announced the legislation. “Not only is it gravely unfair, but it has also proven to be incredibly dangerous.”

Kavanagh said the proposal was “smoke and mirrors”.

Shields shares this belief.

“In theory, additional legislation ensuring that police officers don’t use excessive force against people is a good thing, but in this case, it was a response to its failure,” Shields said. “She blamed the system, but it was the system that made Daniel Prude fail.”

Gloria Browne-Marshall, professor of constitutional law at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York, said that even with progressive attorneys general like James, Dana Nessel in Michigan and Robert Bonta in California, “the system is so corrupted with a history of hundreds of years of racial prejudice that it is very difficult without reforming the system itself to get even progressive-minded people to make a dent in what we see to be a race-based criminal justice system. “

“And so there’s a criticism in California of Bonta, of Letitia James, of Nessel that they haven’t done enough,” Browne-Marshall said. “But the system itself is so skewed. It’s very difficult to use such a skewed system in a way that progress can be made or even quantified.”

She said she often wonders why prosecutors give up when they fail to secure charges against police officers accused of injuring civilians.

“There is no limit to the number of times prosecutors can present evidence before a grand jury and request an indictment,” she said. “My question is, why do these prosecutors only do it once and then, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. We didn’t get an indictment. We tried’?”

Browne-Marshall said the Prude case, like many others in which law enforcement officers are suspected of wrongdoing, highlighted the deference accorded to those accused of using excessive force or fatal. More than 1,000 people die each year in encounters with law enforcement officers in the United States, she said, but few officers are ever charged with murder for deaths on duty.

“We’re getting a relative handful of prosecutors choosing to attempt to get an indictment and we think we’re seeing progress,” Browne-Marshall said. “It is not progress.”

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