Fernando Bermudez: The Colorless Prism of Wrongful Convictions

FERNANDO BERMUDEZ served more than 18 years in New York State maximum security prisons following his wrongful conviction of murder in the shooting death of Raymond Blount in 1991 until proven innocent in late 2009.  Mr. Bermudez's case presents a rare instance of New York case law in which a judge has overturned a conviction on "actual innocence grounds" without DNA evidence. The sole evidence against him involved mistaken and coerced eyewitness identification by five teenagers, who later recanted their testimony.