A Brooklyn judge Wednesday said a man who served 30 years behind bars for killing a prominent Crown Heights rabbi “is actually innocent.”
Judge Guy Mangano, in a 49-page decision, cleared Carl Miller, now 65, of any wrongdoing.
The court, Mangano said in the decision, “finds that there is clear and convincing evidence that defendant is actually innocent.”
“Defendant’s motion to vacate his judgment of conviction is thereby granted,” the judge said, “and the indictment is dismissed.”
Miller told the Daily News that when his lead lawyer, James Henning, called him at home with the news, he felt relief.
“Now I don’t have to fight any more,” he said. “I don’t have that stigma any more. I never wavered. I didn’t commit this crime.”
Henning called the ruling “historically significant,” adding he could recall only two other cases in the state in which a judge ruled someone innocent — as opposed to ordering a new trial.
“It’s just a very high bar to hit,” Henning added. “A finding like this indicates a judge’s extreme confidence in actual innocence. No reasonable juror would convict at a retrial.”
It wasn’t clear if prosecutors would appeal. A spokesman for Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said the DA’s office is “reviewing the decision.”
On Oct. 25, 1979, Miller celebrated his 19th birthday — only to find soon after that he was being eyed in the sensational slaying of Rabbi David Okunov, who was shot, point blank, on his way to morning prayers.
The killer fired once, striking Okunov, 68, above the right eye, then fled the scene at Montgomery St. near Troy Ave. with the victim’s prayer shawl.
From the start, Miller said he was at his girlfriend’s home in South Ozone Park, 9 miles away.
But he was charged with murder — largely on the word of a friend of Miller’s. Darryl Brown, who was 16 at the time, was initially a suspect and provided differing accounts of what he saw, according to court documents.
Two other witnesses did not pick Miller out of a lineup, both describing the man they saw at the murder scene as roughly 5 feet, 9 inches tall and about 150 pounds. Miller at the time was recorded as 6 feet, 1 inch tall and 174 pounds.
Miller was nonetheless convicted of murder in 1980.
He was released from prison in 2019 and set about trying to clear his name so his family, including two grandchildren, could live without the stain of being related to a convicted killer.
Henning filed a motion to vacate in May 2024 on numerous grounds, including insufficient evidence and police and prosecutorial misconduct.
Mangano said none of that was proven, but he found it “particularly compelling” that Miller at each parole hearing maintained his innocence even though admitting guilt might have lead to an earlier release from prison.
And he said that while Brown’s testimony convinced the jury Miller did it, Brown “may have been mistaken.”
On that, Miller disagreed.
“God knows I didn’t kill [the rabbi],” Miller said. “That man who lied, Darryl Brown, knows I didn’t kill him.
“And I know I didn’t kill him.”