On Thursday, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced that his office is moving to vacate the wrongful manslaughter conviction of Steven Ruffin, a man who was found guilty in 1996 during a case of mistaken identity.
Ruffin was only 18-years-old when he was falsely charged with the murder of a 16-year-old named James Deligny. The verdict was determined by an investigation conducted by the DA’s Conviction Review Unit (CRU), which reportedly found that Ruffin’s defense team had failed to present crucial evidence proving another individual’s responsibility for the murder during the trial.
The mistaken-identity shooting occurred as Ruffin and another in his neighborhood were looking for a robber who had just snatched earrings from Ruffin’s sister, which led to Deligny being shot in an altercation on the street.
An anonymous tip then led prosecutors to Ruffin, who was identified in a lineup by Deligny’s sister that a court later deemed flawed. Feeling pressure from authorities and detective Louis Scarcella, Ruffin made a false confession that he would later admit he was coerced into, and revealed that he knew who the killer was: his sister’s boyfriend, who has now been identified as the actual perpetrator. Despite these contradictions, Ruffin was still convicted for the murder in 1996.
It has since been revealed that Scarcella has been involved with a variety of cases where the defendants accused him of coercing confessions, engineering dubious witness identifications, and other corrupt tactics. He has denied these accusations.
In a public statement released earlier this month, Gonzalez retracted the conjectures that led to Mr. Ruffin being found guilty.
“After a full investigation by my Conviction Review Unit, we can no longer stand by this old conviction and will move to give Mr. Ruffin his good name back,” Gonzalez stated on Jan. 18. “A confluence of factors, including errors by defense counsel and tunnel vision by law enforcement, produced a tragic result in this case- Mr. Ruffin was convicted for the actions of a different person whom he claimed to be the killer all along. We will continue to correct miscarriages of justice and to learn from the mistakes we uncover to ensure that they never happen again.”
Mr. Ruffin served nearly 14 years in prison before he was paroled in 2020.
“I lost 14 years of my life for a crime I didn’t commit, and today will help me to move on from that chapter of my life, cleared of any wrongdoing,” said Ruffin after the announcement. “I want to thank my family for their unwavering support and for helping me to build back my life after prison. I also want to thank my legal team- Garrett Ordower and The Legal Aid Society’s Ted Hausman- for believing in my innocence and for never giving up, and District Attorney Gonzalez for helping to exonerate me.”
Ordower, Ruffin’s attorney, commended him for his strength throughout these troubling years: “Nearly three decades after our client Steven Ruffin’s wrongful conviction, he has today finally seen some vindication for his treatment by the criminal justice system… Steven has faced this injustice with extraordinary grace and dignity and I am honored to have been able to help him clear his name. I want to thank all of those who supported this effort, and especially DA Gonzalez and CRU Chief Charlie Linehan and ADA Bruce Alderman, who approached this case with an open mind and a willingness to start making things right.”
Though Mr. Ruffin’s name has been cleared legally, it’s unclear if he will be afforded compensation for his lost time and accumulated damages.
