This post was originally published on New York Amsterdam News
By Tandy Lau
“Natascha Tiger pleaded guilty but is innocent,” wrote Rowan Wilson, current chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals, in his 2018 People v. Tiger dissenting opinion. In fact, no crime probably ever occurred, but New York State’s highest court ruled Tiger, a licensed practical nurse, could not challenge her wrongful conviction plea on the basis of innocence without DNA evidence because the Orange County woman pled guilty to charges in 2012.
Tiger was finally cleared last August due to an ineffective assistance claim, but the Court of Appeals’ ruling set a legal precedent — known as case law — for how New York State would approach similar cases. Subsequently, New Yorkers cannot successfully contest a wrongful conviction by simply proving their innocence without DNA evidence if they have pled guilty.
The justice system isn’t logistically designed for every case to go to trial, even if it is a constitutional right, so defendants are often offered a bargain in return for admitting to having committed the crime. Professing to guilt provides more certainty for the defendant and deals usually come attached with shorter sentences than if someone is convicted in a trial.
Around 24% of National Registry of Exonerations entrants pled guilty to a crime they did not commit. Of those 838 people, more than half are Black, and 26 were charged in New York.
“If you’re charged with a crime, you have to make a decision,” said Maurice Possley, senior researcher with the National Registry of Exonerations. “[If] you think you can succeed in defeating the state’s case, whether you’re guilty or innocent, you have to make that decision. What are your odds? What do you feel is the likelihood that the state will lose and by that, mean that there will be an acquittal? And once you take that into consideration and the state makes you an offer, then you have to make a decision.”
Roughly 99% of misdemeanor convictions and 96% of felony convictions stem from guilty pleas. There are many reasons why innocent people plead guilty. Possley said variables include expediting cases, coercion from attorneys, and the threat of longer sentences, often known as a “trial tax.” Around 24% of National Registry of Exonerations entrants pled guilty to a crime they did not commit. Of those 838 people, more than half are Black, and 26 were charged in New York, according to Possley.
“It’s really only in the last few years that we’ve had any kind of meaningful discovery [or] meaningful bail reform [in New York],” said Sergio De La Pava, New York County Defender Services legal director. “So you’re talking about decades of people incarcerated, being told [to] plead guilty, and [they’ll either] get out or [they’ll] get out a lot sooner than if [they] risk a trial.”
“Fixing” the case law stemming from People v. Tiger is one of the goals of the Challenging Wrongful Convictions Act, a comprehensive bill introduced by State Senator Zellnor Myrie that, among other things, would allow those who plead guilty to challenge a wrongful conviction with credible non-DNA evidence.
“We unfortunately have seen that New York is third in the nation in wrongful convictions,” said Myrie. “We don’t have the appropriate procedures to challenge those wrongful convictions, and they end up costing the state more money in the long run…so why don’t we, at the front end of the system, ensure that anyone who has been wrongfully convicted, even if they plead guilty, [has] the mechanism to challenge [it]?”
This past summer, the legislation passed both the New York State Senate and Assembly, but last month, Gov. Kathy Hochul vetoed the bill due to an “unjustifiable risk of flooding the courts with frivolous claims.” Myrie told the Amsterdam News he’s disappointed by the news but that he plans on renewing talks in this year’s session.
Rebecca Brown, who worked on the bill while serving as the Innocence Project’s policy director, echoed the state senator’s sentiments, pointing to the impact on real life people. But she pointed out the progress as a sign of the legislation’s growing appeal.
“Every year we’ve made gains — the year before last it passed one chamber and then this year, the full legislature,” said Brown. “To me, that signals that this is something that lawmakers care about. It certainly polled incredibly well as an issue, as a reform, across party lines. What is concerning to the coalition is that there has not been a true effort to get the parties to figure out how to move forward on this bill.”
While Tiger is synonymous with the 2018 ruling the bill’s sponsors hope to amend, Natascha Tiger represents many flesh-and-blood people affected by such a decision.
“She was facing years in state prison [and] pled guilty to recklessly burning a child who was in her care,” said De La Pava. “Only because she was sued in the civil sphere following that conviction that it properly came to light that the injuries were actually the result of a medication the child was on. She was innocent. She was factually innocent in a way that maybe even she herself failed to grasp.”
Telling Her Story
When Tiger recently met with the Amsterdam News in Newburgh, she was largely unaware of the Challenging Wrongful Convictions Act. She’s relieved that her case is over, but remains upset “about everyone else who can’t take back their guilty pleas.”
Her ordeal began around Thanksgiving 2011, while caring for a “severely disabled” 10-year-old girl. Tiger noticed the child’s skin broke out while bathing her. The girl was not submerged in water and instead placed on a mesh cot over a bathtub and washed with a hand-held shower hose. Medical providers initially theorized the condition stemmed from an adverse reaction to medication, but later deemed the red, peeling skin as a result of scalding water. The girl was treated for third-degree burns and given skin grafts.
Authorities investigated Tiger and at the time, she feared professional consequences. Criminal charges were unfathomable, so she cooperated fully as someone completely unfamiliar with the justice system. Tiger even proactively arranged meetings with investigators, believing the process was a formality. While she initially knew she didn’t burn the child, the nurse second-guessed herself after the hospital’s analysis and graphic photos of the child’s injuries were shown to her by Child Protective Services. She confessed to not monitoring the shower water’s temperature and wrote an apology letter to the girl’s mother.
In April of 2012, police arrested and charged Tiger. In July 2012, Tiger pled guilty to the single charge of endangering the welfare of a disabled person.
“When she asked her original attorney, he said he didn’t find anything helpful, which is why she pleaded guilty,” said her current lawyer, John Ingrassia. “She wasn’t equipped with the necessary information to plead innocent…what’s really important is that she asked. It wasn’t like she made a decision without inquiring.”
After all, how could she dispute the charge without actually knowing the ailment’s cause? Tiger also faced a stiff trial tax, with up to seven years in state prison if she rejected the plea. She was told by her former attorney that medical experts who could prove her innocence were too expensive, according to court documents. Her only possible witness— the girl — was blind and non-verbal.
Tiger spent four months in jail for a crime that she did not commit. She also lost her medical license and subsequently struggled to find employment before landing a cleaning gig. The experience was traumatic.
While Tiger pled guilty to the criminal charges, a jury later ruled in favor of her and her employers in a civil lawsuit filed by the girl’s parents after evidence from the biopsy—which was available but not provided before the plea bargain—indicated the child’s outbreak was indeed from an adverse medical reaction, not hot-water burns. Tiger then enlisted Ingrassia to help her vacate the conviction under both actual innocence and ineffective assistance.
Despite the 2018 Court of Appeals decision preventing her from challenging her conviction with evidence proving she was innocent, an appellate court later ruled she could vacate her plea due to her first attorney failing to provide the child’s biopsy and expert testimony to inform her decision before pleading guilty. But Tiger risked prison time if she moved forward with a new trial. She says it was a no-brainer. This past August, all charges were dropped.
Tiger once believed “when people are exonerated, that is it.” Not anymore. She’s still figuring things out, although she knows she wants to return to nursing. Yet apprehension remains with how easily doing her job mutated into a wrongful conviction.
“I do want to get my license back, especially the way it was taken from me,” said Tiger. “I’m taking it day by day. I want to, but there’s a fear.”
Can’t Change a Tiger’s Stripes Through CPL 440
The Challenging Wrongful Convictions would overrule the Tiger decision by amending Article 440 of the New York Criminal Procedural Law (CPL 440). Motions brought under it challenge a conviction or sentence’s legality. But avenues to exoneration on the basis of innocence currently provided by CPL 440 are reserved for people convicted at trial due to the Tiger ruling and exclude those who plead guilty—the overwhelming majority of defendants. Yet the article clearly acknowledges the possibility of innocent people pleading guilty, because it specifically allows them to challenge their conviction with forensic DNA evidence.
When interpreting CPL 440 plainly, those who plead guilty can only challenge wrongful convictions on the basis of innocence if their exonerating evidence comes from DNA testing. Such a decision effectively kills most direct claims to innocence on procedural grounds long before the criminal justice legal system can determine their credibility.
In lieu of a 440 motion, wrongful convictions stemming from a guilty plea can be challenged through fledgling conviction integrity units. They’re usually led by prosecutors and operated out of a district attorney’s office. Most notably, Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg’s Post-Conviction Justice Unit helped clear Steve Lopez—the Exonerated Five’s co-defendant who spoke to the AmNews for the second part of this story.
While these prosecutor-led solutions often pose as small-scale, viable alternatives to 440 motions, the units are few and far between outside of New York City. According to VlOCAL-NY, 53 of the 62 counties do not have a conviction integrity unit. Of the nine that do, only two are outside of New York City and Long Island.
“There are people who are out there that have pled guilty, despite being innocent,” said Lopez’s lawyer Eric Renfroe. “I appreciate what Alvin Bragg did, in vacating Steve’s conviction…but if people have the evidence, we shouldn’t have to wait for that action. There should be another avenue besides the grace of district attorneys.”
Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member who writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.
The post Guilty after proven innocent: the challenge of challenging wrongful convictions appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.
