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Brooklyn Man Exonerated 27 Years After Murder Conviction

HeadlineMay 17, 2018

And in New York City, a Brooklyn man who spent 17 years behind bars for a murder he did not commit burst into tears Wednesday as a judge vacated his conviction on murder charges. John Bunn, who’s now 41 years old, was just 14 when he was arrested and charged with killing an off-duty prison guard. John Bunn addressed the court after his exoneration Wednesday.

John Bunn: “Y’all convicted and had a wrong man in prison. And now y’all still have somebody that’s on the loose right now that killed someone in that family, out there running free. And I didn’t deserve any of that stuff that y’all did to me. … They won’t admit or say that I’m an innocent man. But I’m an innocent man, Your Honor. And I have always been an innocent man.”

John Bunn is one of nearly a dozen people—most of them black men—who’ve been exonerated based on false-identification evidence brought by disgraced former NYPD detective Louis Scarcella. Dozens more convictions based on Scarcella’s evidence are under review.

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