Queens Man Receives Second Life Sentence for 1993 Slaying After Conviction Overturn
A defendant who spent 26 years imprisoned for a 1993 Queens homicide has been sentenced again to 25 years to life, following a retrial after his original conviction was vacated due to newly discovered forensic evidence.
Queens Man Receives Second Life Sentence for 1993 Slaying After Conviction Overturn
A defendant who spent more than two and a half decades behind bars for a 1993 killing in Queens has been ordered to serve a life term once more, the Queens Daily Eagle reports.
On Wednesday, Criminal Term Administrative Judge Michelle Johnson imposed a penalty of 25 years to life upon Michael Robinson. The judgment followed a recent jury determination that he was responsible for the death of Gwendolyn Samuels, his former partner, in January 1993.
This marked the second occasion a panel of jurors had reached this conclusion. The initial guilty finding came in 1994, leading to a lengthy prison stay that ended with conditional release in 2019. Four years later, an appellate tribunal ruled the first proceeding had been defective and nullified its outcome.
The defendant's time already served means he may seek parole consideration. Such a review, however, requires extensive documentation and could be delayed by months. For now, he remains in custody at Rikers Island pending transfer to a facility upstate.
At the hearing, Samuels' child—who had been 12 at the time of the fatal attack—asked the tribunal to issue the sternest available punishment. She told the court that the prior sentence had been inadequate.
Robinson spoke briefly, describing personal growth during and after incarceration without directly addressing culpability. The jurist presiding over the matter found this unconvincing, noting that genuine reform would require acknowledging wrongdoing.
Defense representatives sought to have the defendant returned to parole supervision rather than re-incarcerated, arguing he had been living under such conditions when his conviction was set aside. This request was denied on procedural grounds.
The victim had been expecting a child with another man when she was attacked inside a Bayside residence where she worked as a caregiver for an elderly woman with significant vision loss. Prosecutors maintained the assault was motivated by jealousy.
The original case rested largely on testimony from the visually impaired witness, as no physical traces initially linked the accused to the scene. Years later, a records request brought to light biological specimens that had not been examined during the first trial. Independent testing of this material produced results that the defense argued excluded Robinson, a position later adopted by additional examiners. Despite these developments, prosecutors secured a second conviction.
Source: Google News MT — Crime (en)