Lawsuit against NYC & Bklyn DA’s office scares the hell out of me

This lawsuit story — powerfully written by the Daily News’ John Marzulli —is horrendous. You won’t want to read it; you have to, if you care anything about what we call justice.

Prosecutors in Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes’ office routinely arrested witnesses and held them against their will in locked hotel rooms to force them into testifying, according to bombshell court papers filed Wednesday.

“Hynes’ office was running a private jail system where witnesses were illegally interrogated and forcibly detained indefinitely,” wrote lawyer Joel Rudin in court papers filed in connection with Jabbar Collins’ $150 million wrongful conviction lawsuit.

Collins was released from prison in 2010 by a federal judge after serving 15 years for the murder of a Brooklyn rabbi.

Depositions made in preparation for Collins’ civil suit and other cases, Rudin said, show what he believes to be evidence of widespread prosecutorial misconduct.

The last two paragraphs scream:

These practices [see above for brief description of the “practices”], Rudin states in court papers, are illegal and possibly even criminal.

“If they were not happening in Brooklyn, we would associate such practices with a police state,” Rudin wrote in a 94-page submission filed in Brooklyn Federal Court.

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