Citing Right to Due Process, Judge Drops Charges in 1990 Murder

Charges have been dismissed against a man indicted for the 1990 murder of a bouncer at the Palladium nightclub in Manhattan, with a state Supreme Court judge ruling that the defendant's right to a speedy trial had not been upheld.

Judge Bonnie Wittner said charges against Thomas Morales would be dropped, as an indictment more than a dozen years after the crime violated his right to due process and a speedy trial. Morales was indicted in April 2005, 15 years after he allegedly shot a bouncer at the Manhattan nightclub. Prior to a jailhouse admission by an accomplice, two men were convicted of the crime in 1992, although their convictions were later overturned.

In her decision, Judge Wittner indicated that evidence against Morales had been available throughout the investigation of the November 1990 murder of bouncer Marcus Peterson.While some eyewitnesses, including another bouncer that night, identified Morales as a participant in the murder, Morales was never put in a line-up. She wrote that prior to 1995, detectives did not attempt to interview Morales.

"Nothing about the photo identification was complex, nor was the questioning of the two eyewitnesses best suited to see the events and who now identify defendant," she wrote. "Therefore, although the charge is the most serious in the Penal Law, the People's inexcusable and inordinate delay in prosecuting Thomas Morales compels the Court to grant this motion."

The wrongful conviction of the two original suspects came to light in 1994,after a federal prosecutor and a police detective said they learned the true identify of the killers while interviewing a gang member, Joey Pillot. In yesterday's decision, Judge Wittner wrote that during that interview, Pillot confessed that he and Morales had fought with a bouncer at Palladium and were thrown out. When they tried to reenter, Morales shot the bouncer with a .38 caliber revolver.

After building a case for more than a decade, the 1992 convictions of the original suspects, David Lemus and Olmedo Hidalgo, were overturned in 2005.