Vincent Ellerbe was 17 in 1995 when he was arrested and interrogated by NYPD detectives for several hours without his mother or older sister in the room.
He and two other teenagers then spent over two decades in prison after they all later argued they were forced to confess to the horrific arson killing of a Brooklyn transit worker who was set ablaze in a token booth.
“My mom and my sister were downstairs but they wouldn’t let them come in the room with me,” Ellerbe, 45, told THE CITY.
Earlier this year, a state judge cleared Ellerbe and his co-defendants after the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Conviction Review Unit concluded that their “confessions” were coerced by officers. Disgraced former NYPD detective Louis Scarcella, who retired in 1999, had been one of the leads on the case.
Now, criminal justice advocates and defense attorneys are pushing for legislation in Albany that would bar detectives from interviewing anyone under 18 without a lawyer in the room to prevent future false confessions.
They contend that while police are already obliged to read minors their so-called Miranda rights — letting them know they can remain silent, ask for a lawyer and not incriminate themselves — many young people can’t understand what that actually means.
“Kids aren’t allowed to buy cigarettes, but they’re allowed to waive their constitutional right?” It makes no sense,” said Lisa Freeman, the director of the special litigation and law reform unit at the Legal Aid Society.
Under the proposed #Right2RemainSilent legislation, which THE CITY first reported on in 2021, minors would be required to specifically speak with a lawyer before they waive their rights and speak to investigators.
It would also mandate that officers make every effort to contact parents or guardians before a child can be moved from the scene of an arrest.
A similar version of the bill was first introduced in 2019 but supporters are hopeful that it passes this legislative session.
They note it now has support from the politically powerful 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East. The measure is also backed by City Councilmember-elect Yusef Salaam, one of the now-exonerated “Central Park Five” — a group of teens who were convicted of the 1989 rape of a jogger after they gave coerced confessions.
Salaam won the Council seat in Central Harlem last month.
“We were not sophisticated enough to truly understand what was going on,” Salaam, who was 15 when he underwent a grueling hours-long interrogation without counsel, told THE CITY last year.
All told, New York City and state have paid out $77 million to settle wrongful convictions based on false confessions by minors between 2014 and 2017, according to Freeman.
Ellerbe and his co-defendants sued New York City and two detectives on Monday citing flawed evidence that led to their convictions.
Backers of the proposed measure also contend that it’s a key step toward racial and economic equity. They point out that children most likely to come in contact with law enforcement and juvenile justice systems are Black and Latino youth from over-policed schools and low-income neighborhoods.
“I have handled cases that presented juveniles as seeming to be brash and confident only to see that this was false bravado that hid confusion, fear and anxiety,” said former family court judge Ronald Richter.
Ana Bermudez, a former commissioner with the city Department of Probation, is also backing the legislation.
“In its most basic terms, children lack the capacity to fully understand the right to remain silent and are susceptible to falsely confessing to crimes they did not commit,” she wrote in a letter of support for the bill.
Parents or Lawyers
The NYPD is against the possible new restrictions because state law already requires officers to video-record every time cops question someone under the age of 18 in a court-approved juvenile room.
Ellerbe and others contend that’s not enough.
“If a minor gets arrested your parents or your legal guardian should be allowed in,” Ellerbe said. “Y’all taping them but you can still intimidate or trick someone into confessing something that they never did.”
The NYPD also contends that parents, not lawyers, know what’s best for their children.
“Parents and guardians are in the best position to make decisions for their children, and this bill, while well-intentioned, supplants the judgment of parents and guardians with an attorney who may never have met the individual,” a police spokesperson said in an unsigned email last year.
Freeman argues even police officers would want their own kids to have a lawyer present if they were ever interviewed by law enforcement.
“Because no one would think for a moment that their own child would be able to handle that situation independently and understand what it means to waive their constitutional rights,” she said. “And that’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking about a waiver of a constitutional right that already exists.”
Research has shown that minors are primarily focused on what they feel is in their immediate best interest. Teens are also more likely than adults to follow orders from older authority figures, experts say.
As a result, currently approximately 90% of youth who are arrested waive the right to remain silent, according to an American Bar Association August 2016 report by Laird Lorelei titled: “Police routinely read juveniles their Miranda rights, but do kids really understand them?”
The bill is sponsored by two Bronx Democrats, Assemblymember Latoya Joyner and state Sen. Jamaal Bailey.
Over the past two years, the measure passed the Assembly but it was never put up for a vote in the Senate.
The bill now has 30 of 63 state senators signed on as co-sponsors, according to Freeman. It also has wide support in the State Assembly where it passed the last legislative session.
Juvenile justice advocates note that other states like Washington and California have passed similar legislation in recent years.
Notably, none of New York City’s five district attorneys have taken a public position on the legislation, including Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez and Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg who are labeled as progressive prosecutors and have backed other criminal justice reforms.