Jabbar Collins spent 16 years in prison before it was discovered that detectives had pressured the main witness against him to lie about Mr. Collins’s role in the 1994 murder of a rabbi.
The Brooklyn district attorney’s office knew the detectives had pressured the witness but never informed the defense, court papers said. A federal judge later called the prosecutor’s conduct “shameful” and a “tragedy.”
The conviction was vacated and the city paid Mr. Collins a $10 million settlement in 2014. But the prosecutor was never called to account for how he handled the case.
Last week, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo approved legislation to create a special commission to investigate local prosecutors for such allegations of misconduct. The commission would have the authority to sanction prosecutors and, in extreme cases, remove them from office.
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