Opinion ID: 2589768
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the criminal proceedings

Text: In 1976, Ivey was convicted of three counts of murder in the second degree and two counts of robbery in the first degree stemming from a late night holdup of a Buffalo gas station. The Appellate Division concluded that numerous instances of prosecutorial misconduct deprived Ivey of a fair trial. The second criminal trial, at which the testimony of a key new witness supported the inference that another individual was the culprit, ended in a jury verdict of acquittal on all charges. Ivey, having been imprisoned for approximately six years, was then released. The new witness, Sandra Knight, had telephoned Ivey's criminal defense attorney with information possibly helpful to Ivey on the night before summations were to be made in the first trial. The record discloses that Ivey's defense counsel informed the trial prosecutor of Knight's telephone call and sought assistance in investigating Knight's story. Nothing came of this eleventh hour overture and defense counsel did not seek an adjournment or a reopening of the case to call Knight as a defense witness. At the second criminal trial, Knight recounted the activities of her former boyfriend, Donald Brailsford, on the night of the crimes for which Ivey had been tried and convicted. Specifically, she testified that Brailsford left her apartment between 9:00 and 10:00 P.M., phoned her about 45 minutes later and asked her to bring a change of clothes, a coat and a hat to his cousin's home, which faces the side of the gas station where the crimes occurred. According to Knight, Brailsford was out of breath when he called her. When she arrived at his cousin's apartment, Brailsford changed his clothes. He then gave her a pizza box and the clothes he had been wearing and asked her to get her car, which he had borrowed. The car was parked behind the gas station. He told her to put the green Army jacket that was in the car underneath the back seat. Knight complied. She added that Brailsford appeared nervous while they were driving back to her apartment. Upon entering the apartment, Brailsford shaved off his moustache, took a gun out of the pizza box and cleaned it. He asked Knight for a piece of luggage in which he placed the gun, the clothes he had been wearing earlier that evening and the Army jacket. He then left the apartment and returned 5 to 10 minutes later without the luggage. The jury rendered a verdict of acquittal and Ivey was freed.