Judge to Hynes: Too late for retrial in 1989 robbery-murder
The Brooklyn District Attorney’s office has been barred from retrying a man who was wrongly charged and subsequently convicted of a 1989 robbery and murder.
In January 2013, Eastern District Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis ordered the release of William Lopez after finding “credible and compelling showing that [Lopez] is actually innocent of the crime.”
In the January ruling, Garaufis informed the DA’s office that it had sixty days to “concrete and substantial steps . . . to retry” Lopez.