In the shadow of justice: The Palladium murder

Alex Johnson Reporter • Profile

What do you do when the system says you are innocent but won’t let you get on with your life?

David Lemus and Olmedo Hidalgo were released from prison in 2005 after having served 14 years for a murder that a New York judge found they had been wrongly convicted of.

No one disputes that Hidalgo is innocent, including the office of Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau, which, after years of opposition, eventually agreed to defense lawyers’ motion to dismiss his conviction.

And no one disputes that Lemus was wrongly convicted — no one, that is, except the office of Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau, which, after 15 years, three investigations, two hearings and one trial, still believes Lemus is guilty and plans to retry him in the murder of Markus Peterson, a bouncer at the Palladium nightclub who was gunned down on Thanksgiving Day 1990.

Now, the assistant district attorney in Morgenthau’s office who argued against freeing Lemus two years ago is going public to say he, too, believes Lemus is innocent.

“I disagreed then and disagree now with the DA’s Office’s effort to retry Lemus,” Daniel L. Bibb wrote last month in a comment on a blog that criticized his role in the 2005 hearing. “And I still lose sleep over this case.”

Even though it was Bibb who stood up in court and argued that Lemus and Hidalgo should not be freed, “I fought tirelessly to convince my superiors that the convictions should be set aside and when I was forced to do a hearing I did everything in my power to insure that the defendants would win their motion to set aside the convictions,” Bibb wrote in the blog commentary, which MSNBC.com has confirmed as authentic.

Bibb apparently was not the only one inside the district attorney’s office who believed Lemus and Hidalgo were wrongly convicted.

In a quarterly report filed with the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services on April 22, 2004, a year before the hearing, the district attorney’s Cold Case Unit said it was nearing completion of its own review of the Palladium case.

“Substantial new evidence indicates that Lemus and Hidalgo were NOT involved in the homicide,” it reported. The word “not” is capitalized and boldface in the original.

Nonetheless, Lemus goes on trial again Oct. 22.

Click for related coverage

Palladium murder photo gallery
Producer blogs: Think it can’t happen? Think again
Inside Dateline blog: Lemus walks free
Judge’s 2005 decision freeing Lemus
Mailbag: Give us your thoughts
  Discuss your thoughts on the case

For first time, prosecutor reveals his doubts
Bibb’s doubts about his own case came to public light in May, when lawyers for Lemus subpoenaed NBC News for video of an interview conducted by Daniel Slepian, a producer for “Dateline NBC” who has followed the case since 2002 for a documentary, “In the Shadow of Justice.”

The taped interview was the first time Bibb had spoken publicly about “the most difficult case I’ve ever had” — the murder at the Palladium, which he had been assigned to reinvestigate after many years.

Bibb said he already believed Lemus and Hidalgo had been wrongly convicted for almost a year before he went into the courtroom of state Supreme Court Justice Roger Hayes and, under orders from his superiors, argued that they should not be freed.

“The decision to go to the hearing was not made in my presence. It became evident that the people who were making the decisions wanted to go to the hearing,” Bibb said.

Bibb is now a defense attorney in private practice. At that time, his boss was Morgenthau, who at 87 had been Manhattan’s elected district attorney for 30 years.

Asked whether Morgenthau himself was involved in the decision-making process, Bibb replied, “He was aware of what was going on.”

Based on Bibb’s comments, Lemus’ attorneys filed a motion to dismiss all charges, which was denied.

MORE FROM CRIME & COURTS

Crime & courts Section Front

Mom in prostitution-kid case to appear in court Arrest at Walmart triggers charges of racism Gitmo detainees finally get day in court Funerals held for some Fort Hood victims Madoff's Mets jacket sells for $14,500 Obama: Congress should wait on Fort Hood Crime & courts Section Front   Add Crime & courts headlines to your news reader: