How New York’s Attorney General Lets Innocence Claims Slip Through the Cracks

Reed has spent 31 years behind bars for a murder he says he didn’t commit. Now a church leader who has been recognized for his good behavior, he marked his 71st birthday in a cell at Attica Correctional Facility, outside Buffalo. In March 2024, he suffered a heart attack, and some in his family fear he’ll die in prison.

“He’s getting up there,” said Reed’s nephew, Javon, who regularly visits his uncle. “I want to see the guy out before it’s too late.”

Reed says his 1994 murder convictions were based on unreliable eyewitnesses and involved prosecutorial misconduct.

He and Javon contacted the Attorney General’s bureau about the case in 2016. They didn’t hear anything back for two years, Reed said. In 2018, Javon reached out to the bureau again. This time, AG Bureau Chief Gail Heatherly sent a brief email telling Javon to contact the Erie County District Attorney’s Office instead.

She informed him that the AG bureau did not have “original jurisdiction,” but didn’t explain that the local DA could still ask the bureau to reinvestigate the case.

Javon believed the Erie County DA’s office was biased against Reed. “Is there anything you can do to help other than referring me to the same people who locked my uncle up in the first place?” Javon wrote back.

Heatherly then told Javon that the AG bureau could look over his uncle’s materials and correspond with the DA, but first he’d need to apply for a conviction review. The application entails sending a letter to the bureau — which Reed had done two years earlier. Heatherly
didn’t mention Reed’s previous outreach, despite records showing that the bureau had marked it as “received.”

In July 2019, after Reed sent another letter and documents from his case, Heatherly forwarded them to the county DA’s office that had prosecuted him — as the bureau has done with most applications.

The Erie DA’s office contacted Reed and told him that its own conviction integrity unit, or CIU, was considering a reinvestigation. That was the last time Reed would hear from the office.

Erie DA spokesperson Kaitlyn Munro said the unit spent two years reviewing Reed’s case file.

An investigator hired by Reed later produced a report raising questions about the original prosecutor’s reliance on untrustworthy witnesses, among other issues. The report’s list of unreliable witnesses included Reed’s brother — who earned immunity from prosecution by testifying against Reed.

In a recent interview with New York Focus and CJI, Reed’s brother contradicted his original trial testimony that he saw Reed commit the fatal shooting inside a house in Buffalo. In the interview, he recalled hearing the shooting from outside the building.

When reporters pointed out the discrepancy, the brother said, “My [original] testimony was the true testimony. So whatever I said during the trial, that’s what transpired.”

The CIU ultimately decided not to proceed with a formal reinvestigation, Munro told New York Focus and CJI. Reed and his family only learned of the decision when New York Focus and CJI asked the office about his case earlier this year.

“Our office has not had any communication with the defendant because we had been advised that he was represented by counsel,” Munro wrote in an email. Reed was representing himself at the time, he said. Interviews with the defense attorney that the DA had identified as Reed’s counsel and the private investigator confirmed he was pro se.

The office did not explain why Reed’s having a lawyer would have precluded notifying him — or why they decided not to reinvestigate his case.