Man convicted in New York killing is freed on a technicality

A man convicted for a 2015 killing in western New York has been freed and his indictment has been dismissed solely because he was held at the wrong prison according to an interstate law on detainees, a state judge has ruled.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — A man convicted for a 2015 killing in western New York has been freed and his indictment has been dismissed solely because he was held at the wrong prison, which is a violation of an interstate law on detainees, a state judge has ruled.

Terrence Lewis was released earlier this month from a maximum-security prison in Seneca County, where he was serving a sentence of 22 years to life for second-degree murder, the Democrat and Chronicle reported Wednesday. A jury convicted him in 2018 in the drive-by fatal shooting of 29-year-old Johnny Washington in Rochester.

Judge Stephen Miller wrote in a Feb. 5 decision that Monroe County officials violated the federal Interstate Agreement on Detainer’s Law, or the IAD, when they sent him back to a federal prison in Pennsylvania, where he was serving a sentence for a drug conviction, as he awaited trial in the New York murder case after his indictment.

The agreement, approved by Congress in 1970, says a prisoner charged with an unrelated crime in another jurisdiction must be held and tried in that jurisdiction before being returned to the place of their original imprisonment, or else the case in the other jurisdiction must be dismissed.

"The harsh reality is that despite a jury of 12 members of our community determining, after hearing all of the evidence set before them, that defendant is guilty of the murder of Johnny C. Washington, this administrative jail decision made based on jail population and timing, not the law, unequivocally entitles defendant to dismissal of the murder in the second degree indictment with prejudice under the exacting requirements of the anti-shuttling provisions of the IAD," Miller wrote.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-convicted-new-york-killing-freed-technicality-rcna138871

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