Lemrick Nelson: Difference between revisions

Lemrick Nelson, Jr. (born July 31, 1975)^[1] is an American^[2] who was found not guilty of the murder of Yankel Rosenbaum during the 1991 Crown Heights riot. He was arrested several times on unrelated charges over the following years. In his third trial, he was convicted of violating Rosenbaum's civil rights in the murder, and served a ten-year sentence. Nelson admitted for the first time at his 2003 trial that he had stabbed Rosenbaum.

Nelson is the son of immigrants to the United States from Trinidad, Lemrick Nelson Sr. (formerly a baker) and his former wife, Valerie Evans.^[3][4][5][6] According to information presented by his lawyers in 1995, Nelson had a troubled childhood. His mother, who reportedly suffered from mental illness, repeatedly tried to abort him before he was born. As an infant, he lived with his mother at a shelter for battered women. Nelson's earliest memories involved a physical altercation between his father and mother. Eventually, his mother abandoned him when he was 18 months old.^[7][8] Nelson was identified as "a youngster at risk by the end of the fourth grade."^[9] He was an academic underachiever in school, and complaints were made as to his classroom disruption and poor motivation.^[9]

Two psychologists interviewed and tested Nelson in November 1994.^[9] The government's expert was Dr. Naftali Berrill, and the defendant's expert was Dr. Ife Landsmark.^[9] Both found that Nelson had a low average to average I.Q., though Landsmark said that on a language-free exam his score was in a high-average range.^[9] The doctors agreed that his school behavior demonstrated that he suffered from a "conduct disorder", by not from any significant psychopathology.^[9]

After seven-year-old African-American Gavin Cato was accidentally killed by a Jewish motorist on August 19, 1991,^[10] some Black residents of Crown Heights rioted. Shortly after the riot began, a group of 12-20 young Black men shouting "Kill the Jew", led by Nelson, surrounded Yankel Rosenbaum, a 29-year-old University of Melbourne graduate student who was in the United States conducting doctoral research.[1][2] Nelson stabbed Rosenbaum four times in the back with a knife with the word "killer" on the handle and beat him severely, fracturing his skull.[3][4] Nelson was apprehended hiding, with bloody pants and with the bloody knife in his pocket.[5] Before he was taken to the hospital, Rosenbaum identified 16-year-old Nelson as having stabbed him, in a line-up shown to him by the police.^[11] Rosenbaum died on his way to the hospital.[6] Evidence against Nelson also included a bloody knife and Nelson's confession to a detective that he had stabbed Rosenbaum.[7][8]

Nelson moved to a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, after October 1992.^[12] His divorced parents sent him there to live with a half-sister.^[13][14] He was subsequently arrested several times over the following five years.^[15]

Nelson was charged with aggravated assault for slashing a teenage high school classmate, Erik Heard, in the shoulder in January 1994 because Heard had told school officials that Nelson had stolen money from another classmate. He was charged separately with carrying a concealed weapon (a scalpel) at the time of his March 5, 1994, arrest.^{[12][16][17][14][9]}

He pleaded guilty to both charges in DeKalb County Superior Court in Decatur, Georgia in March 1995.^[12][18] Nelson was convicted with regard to both crimes on the basis of his guilty plea.^[19][20][21] He was sentenced to 90–120 days in a "boot camp" (he ended up serving 120 days), three years' probation, and banishment from the State of Georgia.^{[12][22][23][14]}

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit also found that his razor attack: "resulted in Nelson's expulsion from school, during which Nelson physically resisted the police officers who were attempting to arrest him after Nelson refused to leave the school grounds."^[24][14]

After spending approximately two years in Georgia, Nelson returned to the New York area in 1994.^[25] He lived with his mother in New Jersey, and his father in Crown Heights.^[25]

Nelson was arrested in Crown Heights on June 23, 1995, which was three days before he was to graduate high school, four months after he had been sentenced in his slashing conviction, but before he served his 120-day sentence. He was charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and harassment after police tried to question and search him during a drug bust, and according to police he fought with them.^{[26][25][27][28]} According to police, officers asked him for identification, but he refused.^[25] When police stopped him after he had walked a few feet away, and attempted to search him, Nelson allegedly shoved and punched Officer Joseph Martinos, who fell.^[25][27] Nelson was arrested and charged with second-degree assault (a felony, which was later dropped), resisting arrest, and disorderly conduct.^[25] Nelson's lawyer claimed he was harassed and assaulted.^[29] A warrant was issued for his arrest, which was deemed a parole violation.^[26]

Nelson was again arrested in Crown Heights on February 8, 1996, approximately 90 minutes after leaving court.^[30][9] He was charged with possession of a box cutter, and with criminal trespassing for allegedly refusing to leave a building that was not his residence.^[30][9]

Though Nelson contended that religion had not been a factor in his decision to join the mob—that he had been drinking alcohol and gotten "caught up in the excitement"—prosecutors at his trial said Nelson had told a police officer he had heard someone shout "Let's get the Jew!" before he and the crowd attacked Rosenbaum.^[31] Rosenbaum's brother, Norman Rosenbaum (who had been a prosecutor in his native Australia), scoffed at Nelson's assertion, arguing that videotapes showed that Nelson was not intoxicated and "The excitement was when that mob called out, 'There's a Jew, let's get the Jew... It was the excitement of getting the Jew." ^[32]

Charged with murder, Nelson was acquitted in 1992 by a largely African-American jury. Some of them later attended a party to honor Nelson as a "hero."^[33]

After the Rodney King case, in 1993, some people suggested that the U.S. Department of Justice re-try Nelson under the federal criminal civil rights statute.^[34] Nelson was later convicted of violating Rosenbaum's civil rights, but not of having directly caused the victim's death. According to Cornell law professor Sherry Colb, the jury's verdict was "logically incoherent." Though Rosenbaum's family had sued the hospital where he died for malpractice, the jury was supposed to have—but did not—ignore this information in determining Nelson's guilt, reasoning that the hospital and Nelson could not both be guilty. Colb writes that "this line of reasoning can most generously be described as misguided and less generously as stupid." ^[35]

A second trial, in 1996, ended in a hung jury.[9] That led to a third trial.[10]

Nelson admitted for the first time at his 2003 trial that he had stabbed Rosenbaum, and he apologized to Rosenbaum's family.^{[36][37][31][38]}

U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf, disappointed that Nelson had not been given a life sentence in his 2003 trial, said:

There was never any doubt that Lemrick Nelson was the person who stabbed [Yankel Rosenbaum], and there was never any doubt Lemrick Nelson stabbed Yankel Rosenbaum because he was Jewish. This jury today has found Lemrick Nelson guilty because of just that.^[39]

According to New York Magazine, Lemrick’s initial acquittal fueled anger at Mayor David Dinkins, with Dinkins becoming “a surrogate for Lemrick Nelson,” in part because of Dinkins’ support for the verdict, saying ‘I have no doubt that in this case the criminal-justice system has operated fairly and openly.’” ^[40] According to Edward Shapiro, a historian at Brandeis University, “it is possible that David Dinkins would have been reelected mayor in 1993 had the jury not exonerated Lemrick Nelson on October 29, 1992." ^[41]

Nelson served a total of ten years, including time served before his 2003 trial, and was released from prison on June 2, 2004.^[42] In an interview with the New York Post, Nelson indicated that he had stopped drinking.^[43]

Shapiro has called the riot "the most serious anti-Semitic incident in American history."^[41]