Journalist documents >>> "Sandbagging" <<< and >>> "Trial By Ambush" <<< at Chanel Lewis retrial by prosecutors, the trial judge and the OCME's twisty-turny testifier Dr. Margaret M. Prial

“Queens DA makes a mockery of due process in Chanel Lewis trial”                                 

                 ---Ted Hamm in  “The Indypendent”

 
 A senior reporter and now a college don at a small but esteemed Brooklyn institution of higher learning  >>> bells the cat <<<  about the “[re]trial by ambush” of Chanel Lewis 

“Mid-trial disclosure of significant scientific evidence is trial-by-ambush and makes a mockery of a defendant’s right to a fair trial....  What is the defense supposed to do when sandbagged in this manner?” 

                --- Former Prosecutor,                                                     and now a top tier advocate                                        for the improperly convicted

Hamm also gives some detailed dirt about the OCME’s Margaret Prial,  who testified at both the trial and retrial of Chanel Lewis,  but had some very new material in her presentation for the prosecution at the second trial of the diminutive young black man from Brooklyn

This is what the journalism professor in the County of Kings chose to make his lead in a recent article about a terrible miscarriage of justice in the County of Queens:   “At the outset of day four (Thursday, March 21) of the retrial of Chanel Lewis for the murder of Karina Vetrano, Queens prosecutor Brad Leventhal walked over to the defense table with paperwork in his hand….   ‘We just got a new report from the medical examiner about Lewis’ hand injury,’ Leventhal informed Lewis’ team. As they read through the material, Lewis’ lawyers were visibly concerned….   Leventhal then told Judge Michael Aloise that they had just received the new findings. Aloise advised the defense that since there was no motion to include the evidence, there was nothing for him to rule on at that point. But on day six (Tuesday, March 26), Aloise, a strident ally of the prosecution, determined that Leventhal could indeed use the material. And the next day, Dr. Margaret Prial of the Office of Chief Medical Examiner of New York City took the stand….”   (See  ““Queens DA makes a mockery of due process in Chanel Lewis trial”  by Ted Hamm,  4/11/19,  The Indypendent   [https://indypendent.org/2019/04/queens-da-makes-a-mockery-of-due-process-in-chanel-lewis-trial-2/]).  

Journalist and Professor Hamm continued with this:   "....   After Dr. Prial provided a graphic description of Vetrano’s brutal death by strangulation, jurors went to lunch. When they came back, they learned details of a report that Prial had not presented when she testified at the November mistrial. Based on blood cultures taken from the hand injury that brought Lewis to SUNY-Downstate Medical Center the day after Vetrano’s murder, Prial now argued that the bacteria in the cultures came from a mouth and anus, and from brackish water. In one of his two confessions, Lewis said that he had wiped off his bloody hand in a puddle at the murder scene....   Prial’s updated findings made only a minor splash. But they formed a dramatic part of Leventhal’s marathon closing statement on Monday, April 1. The already-high volume prosecutor shouted that the bacteria proved that after killing Vetrano, Lewis probed her cavities and that 'he had his way with her!'..." 

--  Former Prosecutor and now a top tier advocate for the improperly convicted says:  “Mid-trial disclosure of significant scientific evidence is trial-by-ambush and makes a mockery of a defendant’s right to a fair trial....  What is the defense supposed to do when sandbagged in this manner?”  

-- Other defense advocate quoted as saying the prosecution violated the Criminal Procedure Law of New York State during the retrial of Chanel Lewis

Professor Hamm's article included statements from several top defendants' advocates indicating that the late disclosure of the additional material from a new report by OCME  Medical Examiner Margaret Prial was very prejudicial to the rights of the accused and was a direct violation of the Criminal Procedure law of the State of New York. And that Dr. Prial's new [changed] testimony might well have led to the conviction of Chanel Lewis.

Ted Hamm's piece also contained some key pieces of negative history involving  Dr. Prial's shifting testimony in other cases.