Partner Bill Easton walked Rachael Casey out of prison
With the assistance of the Cornell Law School Innocence Clinic, partner Bill Easton was able to walk Rachel Casey out of prison last week. Casey was convicted of arson and murder in connection with a fire that killed her infant daughter. Her appeal was based primarily on a lack of scientific evidence to back the arson claim. In 2012, Casey’s lawyers argued in Steuben County Court that the conviction should be voided because the original court-appointed defense...
read moreRhian Jones scheduled to speak on “Best Practices for Initiating and Defending Contempt Proceedings” at Family Law Update 2016
Rhian Jones, of counsel, is scheduled to speak with Judge Kohout on “Best Practices for Initiating and Defending Contempt Proceedings” at the Family Law Update 2016 Continuing Legal Education Seminar presented by the NYS Defenders Association and the Monroe County Public Defender’s Office. The CLE will be on Saturday, June 11, 2016, at the Radisson Hotel Rochester Airport, 175 Jefferson...
read moreJudge Telesca allows bulk of Freddie Peacock’s constitutional and civil rights claims against City of Rochester to proceed
An article was published in today’s New York Law Journal on Judge Michael Telesca’s remarkable decision Peacock vs. City of Rochester, a civil rights action following Mr. Peacock’s wrongful conviction and subsequent exoneration through the efforts of the Innocence Project and ETKS. Mr. Peacock is represented by partner Don Thompson and Neufeld Scheck & Brustin attorneys Nick Brustin and Danielle Hamilton. Western District Judge Michael Telesca ruled that Freddie Peacock may proceed to...
read moreFederal judge ruled police officer may have fabricated confession that led to imprisonment of Partner Don Thompson’s client and Innocence Project Exoneree Freddie Peacock
Partner Don Thompson and Nick Brustin of Neufeld Scheck & Brustin comment on District Court Judge Michael Telesca’s decision finding that a “reasonable jury” could conclude that the officer who claimed Freddie Peacock raped a woman in 1976 “concocted (Peacock’s) confession out of whole cloth,” leading to his wrongful conviction. Read the Democrat and Chronicle article...
read morePartner Don Thompson comments on forensics expert Jerry Grant, whose testimony was used to try and secure new trial for Adnan Syed.
“In February, defense attorneys used the testimony of Rochester-based computer forensics expert Gerald “Jerry” Grant Jr. to try to secure a new trial for Adnan Syed, the man imprisoned for murder and the focus of the phenomenally popular podcast Serial. * * * * ‘He’s completely self-taught and he has a work ethic like nobody else,’ said local defense lawyer Donald Thompson, whose firm, Easton Thompson Kasperek Shiffrin LLP, often uses Grant. ‘He is like one of...
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