Opinion ID: 2785252
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Indictment of Hector Rivas

Text: In January 1992, William J. Fitzpatrick was sworn in as District Attorney of Onondaga County, having previously served in that office as an Assistant District Attorney. According to his biography on the Onondaga County District Attorney’s website, when he was Chief Assistant District Attorney, ‚Fitzpatrick specialized in re-opening cases that had previously been considered inactive and, with the cooperation of various police agencies in Onondaga County and the state of New York, he brought numerous killers to justice in cases that were thought to be un-winnable.‛ See ‚Meet the DA,‛ Office of the Onondaga District Attorney, www.ongovda.net/section/meet_the_da/ (last visited May 30, 2012). On November 22, 1992, nearly six years after the murder of Valerie Hill, a grand jury indicted Rivas on charges of murder in the second degree and aggravated sexual abuse. It is not clear what, if any, new evidence might have come to light that would lead authorities to pursue, and the grand jury to indict, Rivas nearly six years after the murder. In its Bill of Particulars, responding to a defense request for the date when Rivas was first identified as a possible perpetrator of the crime, the prosecution stated, simply: ‚It is very difficult to respond to this request. Defendant was 14 indicted in November 1992.‛ See Rivas v. Fischer, No. 01– cv–1891, (N.D.N.Y. Sept. 18, 2009), ECF No. 55–2 at 56 (Answering Affidavit). Rivas contends that, sometime after becoming District Attorney, Fitzpatrick approached Mitchell, the medical examiner, and requested that he review Hill’s autopsy report with an eye toward expanding the time of death to include Friday, March 27, 1987, when Rivas’s alibi was not as strong. According to Rivas, at the time this alleged request was made, Mitchell ‚was under criminal investigation by DA Fitzpatrick’s office, as well as by the Department of Health and the Department of Environmental Conservation‛ for varieties of misconduct, including improper disposal of waste and stealing and mishandling of body parts. Appellant’s Br. at 8. The State concedes that Mitchell was accused of various forms of misconduct as early as 1989, see Appellee’s Br. at 24, and does not dispute that he was under investigation by the State Department of Health at the time he testified against Rivas. It is also undisputed that Mitchell resigned in November 1993, in part to avoid prosecution by the District Attorney’s Office. See Remand Hearing Tr.[, dated Sept. 21 & 22, 2009,] at 205.7 It is not clear from the record, however, at 7 Mitchell’s decision to resign was widely reported in the local newspapers. See, e.g., John O’Brien & Todd Lightly, ‚DA: Mitchell ‘Went Too Far’: Medical Examiner, Accused of Mishandling Body Parts, Quits Under Pressure,‛ The Syracuse Post–Standard, Nov. 20, 1993, at A1 (‚Thursday, Fitzpatrick told 15 what point the District Attorney’s Office opened its criminal investigation into Mitchell’s conduct.8 Though Rivas’s state post-conviction attorneys submitted requests under New York’s Freedom of Information Law requesting information regarding the investigation, the County provided only one page (a press release) in response, maintaining that other materials were non-final agency records and attorney work product. See Remand Hearing Tr.[, dated Sept. 21 & 22, 2009,] at 208. Rivas’s attorneys also persuaded a Mitchell’s lawyer that if Mitchell resigned, the criminal investigation would end.‛). In the separate investigation by the State Department of Health, Mitchell was later cleared of wrongdoing. See Jim O’Hara, ‚Ex–Medical Examiner Cleared of Wrongdoing: Mitchell was Accused of Improperly Harvesting Body Parts,‛ Syracuse Post–Standard, Nov. 16, 1995, at B1. 8 The investigation was triggered when two subordinates publicly accused Mitchell of misconduct. These self-styled ‚whistleblowers‛ submitted statements that were included in the record of Rivas’s initial appeal to this Court. One subordinate claimed to have witnessed Mitchell ‚slant the interpretation of evidence and/or exclude evidence to serve his predetermined objectives,‛ and averred that ‚Dr. Mitchell’s opinions and interpretations of evidence cannot be trusted as impartial or accurate.‛ Aff. of William R. Sawyer at 5–7 (quoted in Joint App’x at 337 n.7). Another—who was himself fired at the same time Mitchell resigned, and later had his medical license revoked for persistent drug and alcohol abuse—claimed that Mitchell had instructed him to fashion his autopsy reports in a way that would allow for manipulation of the case findings and had remarked that ‚the medical examiners worked for Onondaga County and were there to serve the needs of the District Attorney’s Office.‛ Letter of David A. Rigle at 16 (quoted in Joint App’x at 337 n.7). 16 state Supreme Court justice to conduct an in camera review of the County’s investigation of Mitchell in 1998, but the judge determined that the documents would not be provided to Rivas.9 In any case, whether it was out of an ‚eagerness+ to please the prosecutor,‛ Appellant’s Br. at 5, as Rivas suggests, or based upon an independent reevaluation of the medical record, it does appear that sometime in 1992, Mitchell reconsidered his estimate of the time of death. The grand jury’s indictment alleges that Rivas killed Hill ‚on or about‛ Friday, March 27, 1987. The State has identified no new evidence that came to light between March 1987 and November 1992 that led to the indictment.10 As far as the record reflects, therefore, the only thing that changed during that span of time was the medical examiner’s estimation of the time of death. 9 The judge did, however, inform one of Rivas’s attorneys that Fitzpatrick was scheduled to attend a meeting with a legislative committee regarding allegations against Mitchell on April 13, 1993, just over two weeks after the conclusion of Rivas’s trial. See Remand Hearing Tr.[, dated Sept. 21 & 22, 2009,] 117–19. 10 It appears that the only new evidence prosecutors employed at Rivas’s trial was the testimony of a former friend, who stated that Rivas made an incriminating statement to the effect that he ‚didn’t mean to do it‛ shortly after Hill’s death. See Trial Tr. at 816–17. However, prosecutors evidently did not learn of this alleged statement until after the indictment was returned, when the witness’s girlfriend came forward. See id. at 828–29. 17