Vernon Horn
The year was 1999 in New Haven, Connecticut, Vernon Horn, a 17-year-old black male was convicted in 2000, and was exonerated in 2018; spending 70 years in prison.
In the early morning of January 24, 1999, three armed men robbed a convenience store in New Haven. One of the robbers shot and killed a store customer; the store's co-owner was also shot but survived. Three witnesses identified Horn as being at the deli although, their identifications were questionable, there were at least ten witnesses who could have testified that they saw Horn at the Alley Cat bar, the Athenian Diner, and other locations, but none were called to testify. Horn was charged with felony murder, robbery, attempted robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery,
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The complaint goes on to detail how 3 New Haven detectives wrongly focused their investigation on Horn as a suspect and how they induced witnesses to wrongly implicate Horn as a participant in the crime while also concealing exculpatory …show more content…
Horn’s lawsuit also alleges the “General Rifling Characteristics” reports done at the time to determine what type of gun was used were altered to align with witness testimony for a stronger case against Horn. Stephenson conducted the reports but never disclosed them to Horn’s lawyer or provided them to the State’s Attorney’s Office, the suit alleges. The prosecutor realized about a year later as he was preparing for trial in early 2000 that he had a problem: "His star witness said the murder weapon was a Beretta. But his forensic examiner's report did not list a Beretta as even a possible murder weapon". So the prosecutor called Stephenson "shortly before the start of jury selection," and he asked, "whether it was possible the murder weapon could have been a Beretta. According to the complaint, Stephenson "manipulated his findings by changing the margin of error," and "this manipulation allowed the report to include a make of murder weapon not supported by his findings and thereby made those findings fit the testimony of the State's key witness" (Wrongly Convicted Man Files Suit Against New Haven Police Officials, 2018). The reports were not supplied to Horn until 18 years later during the reinvestigation. Horn’s lawyer conceded that Horn had used the phone. The