By Ryan Thompson
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

BROOKLYN — Kings County Administrative Judge Barry Kamins will join his predecessor, Hon. Theodore T. Jones, on the state’s Justice Task Force on Wrongful Convictions.

Court of Appeals Judge Jones, the former Brooklyn Supreme Court administrative judge and Brooklyn-born jurist, will co-chair the task force along with Westchester District Attorney Janet Difiore. Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman appointed the task force.

Brooklyn Assemblyman Joe Lentol, Brooklyn Law School Professor William E. Hellerstein and The Legal Aid Society’s Seymour W. James Jr., who is the husband of Appellate Division, Second Department Justice Cheryl E. Chambers, are a few of the other prominent names known in Brooklyn and throughout the city. Kamins was recently the chair of a similar wrongful convictions task force with the New York State Bar Association. Hellerstein, who has had some success in winning the freedom of several innocent men, formerly ran the Second Look Clinic’s innocence project at Brooklyn Law School.

Assemblyman Lentol (D-North Brooklyn) attended the first meeting of the Justice Task Force last week at D.A. DiFiore’s office in White Plains.

“I am thrilled at this opportunity to reform our criminal justice system and look forward to working with so many motivated individuals,� Lentol said. ““I do not accept that to maintain a criminal justice system, we must accept some collateral damage in the form of the innocent being jailed for crimes they did not commit. I and my fellow task force members will seek to reduce the amount of wrongful convictions in New York’s justice system.�

The aim of the task force is to identify recurring weaknesses in the criminal justice system that lead to false convictions.

Since the introduction of DNA testing in the early 1990s, a large amount of prisoners have been exonerated leading to calls for reform. The Task Force’s work will include reviewing previous studies on the problem including the New York State Bar Association’s recently published report on wrongful conviction, which report Kamins was instrumental in drafting.

Taking into account the varying views and expertise of the various task force members, several proposals and recommendations will be proffered with the possibility of new legislation in conjunction with reforms that can be implemented immediately on the ground level: from the prosecutors’offices and courtrooms to individual police precincts.

“It is our profound belief that we can truly free our criminal justice system of wrongful convictions. It is vital that the public trust that we, the state, are locking up the truly guilty. When dealing with people’s lives, it is essential that we act with precision.� Lentol added. “And as we all know, when an innocent person is in prison, the real criminal is still walking the streets.�

The other task force members are NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly, New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services Deputy Secretary Denise O’Donnell, Specialist in Forensic Sciences Kathleen Corrado, Ph.D, Unified Court System’s head of Policy and Planning Judith Harris-Kluger, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Richard B. Lowe III, Appellate Division Justice Karen K. Peters, Sen. Eric Schneiderman, and St. Luke’s Hospital Crime Victims Treatment Director Susan Xenarios.

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