Carmella Bowers and her son Johnnie Boykins are combating to exonerate Boyers’ son Darren Boykins, who was convicted for the 1981 homicide of Milton Laufer in Newark. (Dana DiFilippo | New Jersey Monitor)
A retired lawyer combating to exonerate a Newark man imprisoned for 44 years for a 1981 homicide he’s all the time claimed he didn’t commit has taken his combat to state courtroom, accusing police, prosecutors, judges, and others of misconduct.
Authorities did not expose exculpatory proof that might have cleared Darren Boykins from suspicion within the Could 22, 1981, slaying of carpet salesman Milton Laufer and coated up or dismissed proof that might have freed Boykins from jail in his post-conviction appeals and parole bids, lawyer John Crayton argued in a petition filed in Essex County Superior Court docket final week. Crayton needs a choose to vacate the conviction.
Boykins, who was 19 on the time of his arrest, has all the time claimed he didn’t kill Laufer. He’s now 64 and incarcerated at New Jersey State Jail in Trenton, the place he’s beneath psychiatric care.
He had an alibi the day of the homicide, investigators by no means discovered a homicide weapon, and two witnesses repeatedly couldn’t determine him because the killer. However jurors convicted him largely on the phrase of a jailhouse informant, who later recanted, and a photograph lineup 39 days after the murder that Crayton contends was improper.
Crayton spent six months reinvestigating the case and despatched a prolonged report final winter to varied authorities laying out proof he says reveals Boykins was wrongly convicted. He has pushed unsuccessfully for Gov. Phil Murphy to grant Boykins clemency and the Essex County Prosecutor’s Conviction Integrity Unit to evaluation his conviction.
“I nonetheless am hoping that somebody will learn what I’ve despatched them earlier than and have a look at what I simply filed — and take a tough have a look at the case and are available to the tough however brave choice that what occurred to Darren 44 years in the past was terribly mistaken,” Crayton mentioned.
Carmen Martin, a spokeswoman for the Essex County Prosecutor’s Workplace, declined to remark Tuesday.
Darren Boykins was 19, pictured at left, when he was arrested within the 1981 homicide of Milton Laufer in Newark. Boykins, at proper, is now 64 and imprisoned at New Jersey State Jail in Trenton. (Pictures courtesy of Carmella Bowers and New Jersey Division of Corrections)
Boykins has been eligible for parole since 2006 however twice has been denied launch by a board critics have complained routinely rejects parole-eligible prisoners’ bids for freedom. He’ll be eligible once more in March. Crayton has petitioned the courtroom for restricted guardianship in order that he can argue earlier than the state parole board for Boykins’ launch.
He’s additionally working to line up a psychiatric placement in the neighborhood for Boykins, in hopes that he prevails in his combat. He regards Boykins’ continued incarceration as a failure of each the legal justice system that condemned him to life behind bars in addition to reformers whose inaction retains him there regardless of proof of injustice.
“Why on this planet is a soon-to-be 74-year-old, semi-retired lawyer sitting in his storage workplace bringing ahead a possible exoneration case in New Jersey?” Crayton mentioned. “Any person else must be doing that.”
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