New York CIUs have supported more than 90 exonerations in the last decade and a half. In half of those cases, prosecutorial misconduct may have played a role in the original conviction, according to a New York Focus and CJI analysis of data from the National Registry of Exonerations. Each included credible allegations that prosecutors had violated legal and ethical standards meant to ensure a defendant’s constitutional right to a fair trial, such as withholding evidence that could have cleared their name or making statements during trial that biased the jury.

Officials acknowledged that prosecutors had engaged in improper behavior in less than 20 percent of these exonerations, according to a review of DA press statements. By contrast, officials conceded mistakes by police in nearly 60 percent of them.

Even when units recognized prosecutor mistakes, DAs’ offices overlooked them. In Brooklyn, for instance, the Kings County unit publishes reports on exonerations it supports, detailing what went wrong in the original criminal cases. Almost a dozen of these reports have documented prosecutor missteps. But in press releases touting the exonerations, the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office sometimes omits such actions.

Andrew Cuomo’s taxpayer-funded defense lawyers are throwing him a fundraiser.

New York Focus obtained an invitation to the leading mayoral candidate’s event, scheduled for Thursday afternoon at the Manhattan office of the Morvillo Abramowitz Grand Iason & Anello law firm.

The invite was circulated this week to members of the New York State Academy of Trial Lawyers. Three of the event’s co-hosts — Rita Glavin, Theresa Trzaskoma, and Elkan Abramowitz — defended the former governor against sexual harassment allegations and a federal probe into his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Another, Catherine Foti, defended his top aides, though never Cuomo himself. The fifth — personal injury lawyer Joe Belluck, who who served as a special counsel under former Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and shared the list of co-hosts with New York Focus — said he has never represented Cuomo or any state government official.

Throughout the 1990s, favoritism ran rampant in New York City’s court system: Political leaders within the boroughs were getting state Supreme or Surrogate’s Court appointments from the same judges they’d helped elect.

These appointees are charged with managing the finances of New York’s most vulnerable populations — widows, children, and people with cognitive disabilities — and are paid from the same funds they’re managing.

On Wednesday, New York Focus examined how political patronage never left this appointment system, despite reforms implemented two decades ago by then-Chief Judge Judith Kaye.

When lawyers are appointed by judges based on connections, not competence, clients may be forced to pay for less than stellar representation. And when a politically connected lawyer is appointed, and appears before the same judge for their client, it can raise other parties’ suspicions in the case.

Here are four key takeaways from our investigation.

There are perhaps hundreds of innocent people in New York prisons. Studies estimate that as much as 6 percent of the US prison population is wrongfully incarcerated — that translates to roughly 2,000 wrongfully incarcerated people in the state. Their path to exoneration is narrow: They can appeal their convictions in court, but New York appellate courts rarely grant full exoneration.

Over the past decade, New York prosecutors have been promoting conviction integrity units, commonly known as CIUs, as an alternative path to exoneration. For incarcerated people who’ve exhausted their court appeals, the units are often their last resort.

These specialized departments, typically housed within DAs’ offices, are tasked with re-examining wrongful conviction claims. They promise a fair and independent review, a collaborative fact-finding mission.

New York Focus, in collaboration with Columbia Journalism Investigations, recently published the first installment of an investigation into CIUs and how they operate.

Over the course of a year, we reviewed every known exoneration case in New York counties with a CIU. We interviewed more than 100 exonerees, defense attorneys, legal scholars, current and former CIU staff members, and elected district attorneys in order to evaluate the units’ efficacy.

Here’s what we found.