But four months ago, a jury upended expectations when it declared itself hopelessly deadlocked over the case of Chanel Lewis, who was accused of murdering Karina Vetrano as she jogged in a Queens park in 2016.
Now, as the retrial of Lewis proceeds in state Supreme Court in Queens, the case has dredged up questions about coerced confessions, racial profiling and the fallibility of police — issues that have hung over New York City’s criminal justice system for decades.
The case hinges, in part, on a police stop that ultimately led to Lewis’ arrest months after the murder investigation had stalled. That incident was one of the points of contention for jurors in the first trial. Some jurors also believed that Lewis’ confession was coerced and that the DNA evidence was tainted.
“This case is about how tunnel vision clouds judgment,” Lewis’ defense lawyer, Jenny Cheung, said in her opening statement last week. Police had relied on “a series of assumptions to piece together what happened,” she said.
The murder of Vetrano has been one of the most high-profile cases in the city in recent memory — an apparent act of random, brutal violence that riveted and horrified New Yorkers. The prosecution of Lewis has since prompted debate over social media, and in the courtroom.
Some observers think the confession and DNA evidence is ample proof of Lewis’ guilt, while others believe that prosecutors have the wrong man and that police had racially profiled him.
The skeptics say the case is reminiscent of the beating and rape of a jogger in Central Park in 1989. In that case, the police investigation resulted in the wrongful convictions of five black and Latino teenagers.
Over the last 25 years, scores of convictions in which the defendants confessed have been overturned, and juries have begun to view confessions with more skepticism, legal experts said. Some jurors have begun to question DNA evidence and police integrity. That trend holds particularly true in minority communities where distrust of law enforcement is greater.
Before the second trial began on March 18, prosecutors sought to weed out potential jurors who, during questioning, said they or someone they knew had had a negative experience with law enforcement. Most of those members were either black men, or women who recounted incidents involving someone they knew who had been profiled or treated badly by police.
Ronald L. Kuby, a civil rights lawyer, said trials were often won or lost during jury selection. “In a case like this that is fraught with race and police overreaching, and questions about a rush to judgment, the defense would like a diverse jury with diverse life experiences,” he said.
In the end, half of the 12 jurors chosen to decide Lewis’ fate were white, including four men. The remaining six members are black, Hispanic and Asian. There are no black men on the jury. The jury that served on the first trial included three white members.
With an older and whiter jury, prosecutors with the Queens district attorney’s office have sought to reinforce what they believed all along: that the evidence of Lewis’ guilt is overwhelming. The prosecution has also tried to counter the defense’s argument that the evidence was mishandled or contaminated.
The jury, like the first panel, will have to determine Lewis’ guilt or innocence based almost entirely on his statements to police and the DNA evidence. There are no witnesses to the murder, and no other scientific evidence like fingerprints, hair or blood.
In an opening statement, lead prosecutor Brad A. Leventhal said the ideas that the DNA evidence was flawed or that Lewis gave a false confession strained credibility.
When Lewis saw Vetrano in the park, Lewis told investigators that “he just saw red and he lost it,” the prosecutor said. “He took out his anger and frustration on this unsuspecting innocent young woman.”
For the second trial, prosecutors called for the first time on Vetrano’s mother, Cathie Vetrano, to testify, over the objection of Lewis’ defense lawyers. Through tears, she recounted her last conversation with her daughter at the family’s home.
“She appeared beautiful as always,” Vetrano said. During her testimony, one juror quietly wiped away tears.
Her husband, Philip Vetrano, testified he had found their daughter in a weeded path in Spring Creek Park in Howard Beach, Queens, on Aug. 2, 2016. She had been brutally beaten and strangled, and was partially clothed.
“I let out a sound I never made before or since,” Philip Vetrano, a retired firefighter, recalled.
Karina Vetrano’s death sparked a manhunt for the killer, with 100 detectives initially assigned to a task force to investigate the murder.
The murder investigation made little progress for six months. Then Lewis was interviewed, because of the hunch of a police lieutenant, John Russo. Months before the murder, Russo testified, he had spotted Lewis “acting suspiciously” and walking slowly through Howard Beach, a predominantly white neighborhood.
A resident, Angelo Guarino, 55, had called 911 in late May to say the same thing, telling a dispatcher, “He definitely doesn’t belong here.” The day Guarino called 911, Russo saw Lewis again and asked patrol officers and detectives to stop and search him.
After the murder investigation hit a wall, Russo suggested detectives talk to Lewis, who lived in East New York, Brooklyn, roughly 3 miles away from Howard Beach. They obtained a DNA sample, and the forensics experts said it matched the DNA found on Vetrano’s neck and cellphone, as well as a mixture taken from her fingernails, prosecutors said.
Lewis at first denied being involved in Vetrano’s death, according to evidence presented at the last trial. After a four-hour interrogation, however, he told a Queens prosecutor in a videotaped interview that he had attacked Vetrano because he was angry that his neighbors had been playing loud music.
He denied sexually assaulting her, and, though an autopsy showed she was strangled, he claimed she had drowned in a puddle, the video showed.
Lewis’ cellphone contained downloaded images of the crime scene and internet searches about “second chances,” prosecutors said, and he had a hand injury the day after the murder that a doctor said was consistent with punching someone.
At the first trial, the defense highlighted signs the confession might have been coerced. Lewis, who lived with his mother and had graduated from a school for students with learning disabilities, appeared confused at times during the videotaped interview. He initially thought the prosecutor was his defense lawyer.
Defense lawyers also challenged the DNA evidence during the first trial and have done so again. They maintain Lewis’ DNA could have ended up on Vetrano’s cellphone or neck if they had both touched the same surface at some point.
“Take note of what the DNA evidence can tell you and what it can’t tell you,” Cheung said last week during opening statements. “There are gaps that need to be filled in, and there are things that just don’t make sense.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.