Word: hoffner
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...claimant, Louis Hoffner, studied the judge from across the hearing room, his face drawn and tired-looking. "Inherent also in this decision." the judge continued, "must be the fact that the District Attorney's office had possession of evidence which, if known to defendant's counsel, would have prevented this tragic miscarriage of justice...
...Hoffner, son of a Russian immigrant baker, worked as a runner in Wall Street, an odd-jobs man in a 5 & 10? store. At the age of 22 he served 30 months in jail for attempted grand larceny, and at 27 he got into more serious trouble. In August 1940, police arrested him as he was walking his dog outside his Brooklyn home, and hauled him off to the station. Not until much later was Hoffner told that a bartender had been shot dead in a restaurant holdup in Jamaica, eleven miles from where Hoffner had been at the time...
...lineup, the restaurant's part-owner had a close look at Louis Hoffner and flatly stated: "He's not the man." The waiter, who had glimpsed the murderer for only 35 seconds, also failed to identify Hoffner-but after a ten-minute chat with police, the waiter returned and pointed at him: "That's the man; he was in the place the other night." A jury returned a verdict of guilty, recommending mercy. "I thought it might be well to put the boy away," was the way one juror, a woman, explained it, "because of his previous...
...Vegas." So Louis Hoffner, 28 years old, went off to serve his life sentence in Clinton Prison, Dannemora, N.Y. But outside Dannemora, more and more voices were insisting that Hoffner was innocent. A policeman friend of the family, an attorney, a New York World-Telegram reporter, set to work to dig up the irregularities, and they found plenty, e.g., that Louis Hoffner's prosecutors had in effect concealed the shaky identification in the lineup. In November 1952, Louis Hoffner was set free...
Last week Hoffner seemed content with the promise of $112,291 (the state could still appeal). "I've got a yen for Las Vegas-but I'm not going to gamble. And I'd like to go to Hollywood-I've heard so much about that kind of life." Soberly, Louis Hoffner concluded: "Then I'd like to find some legitimate business, maybe a liquor store. I'd like to enjoy life...