In the United States the political ambitions of high profile prosecutors have led to untold numbers of wrongful convictions. As Daniel Jeffreys reports, in the case of one New York City cop this meant twelve years in jail for a crime he did not commit.
On December 16, 1997, 32-year-old Richard DiGuglielmo, a former New York City cop, walked into the Fishkill Correctional Institute in New York State. The decorated Italian-American officer was beginning a sentence of 20 years to life for the October 1996 killing of Charles Campbell, a 37-year-old African American sanitation worker. It was a difficult moment.
'I was a white cop sent to a prison full of black inmates,' says DiGuglielmo. 'And the shooting had been portrayed as an act of racial hatred by the prosecutor.'
DiGuglielmo had maintained his innocence throughout a contentious trial, claiming the killing, which took place one hour north of Manhattan in the parking lot of his father's Dobbs Ferry delicatessen, had been justified. DiGuglielmo, who was off duty, shot Campbell as he attacked the police officer's father with a baseball bat.
'Even after I was sentenced I believed that what I had done was right,' he says. 'To this day I believe I saved my father's life.'
Given the highly charged nature of his trial, with daily protests organised by the Reverend Al Sharpton, one of New York's most radical black activists, DiGuglielmo knew prison was going to be tough, but as he walked down a narrow corridor he had not anticipated the manner in which the first assault would come.
'They had a assembled a team of prison officers in emergency response gear,' DiGuglielmo recalls. 'Some of them had the visors down on their helmets. I said 'Is there a problem?' One of the officers said 'Shut the f**k up, this is your welcoming party'.' After running the gauntlet DiGuglielmo was required to remove his clothes and place them in a cardboard box. He was told to write his address on the outside so his belongings could be mailed to his next of kin. He was then left naked in a holding pen for four hours. 'Eventually two black prison officers entered the pen,' says DiGuglielmo. 'One said, 'You don't look so tough now, you racist' and he spat in my eye. I began to wipe my face. He whacked me on the head and said 'I didn't tell you to wipe that'. I started to get up, but the good Lord told me to sit back down. That saved me from getting much worse.'