By Daniel Katzive
The trial of Lashawn Mackey, accused of murdering 74-year-old Upper Westsider Maria Hernandez in January 2023, ended in a mistrial on Friday. The defendant will remain on Rikers Island while he awaits a new trial now scheduled for April.
New York State Supreme Criminal Court Judge Felicia Mennin accepted arguments made by Mackey’s attorney, Jessica Horani, that Mackey’s right to a fair trial was impaired by a series of failures by the prosecution to disclose evidence which the defense was entitled to receive in a timely manner. The jury, which had been sitting for almost two weeks and heard about half of the planned prosecution witnesses, was brought into the courtroom, thanked by the judge, and discharged.
A new jury will be selected beginning April 13.
Judge Mennin cited a number of discovery failures which had been uncovered during the trial, including the prosecution providing incomplete banking and phone records to the defense and witnesses revealing new information in testimony – or just before testimony – which had not been included in interviews conducted at the time of the initial investigation.
Additionally, one prosecution witness, a now-retired detective who was involved in gathering video evidence following the crime but had been left off a witness list provided to the defense, broke down while testifying, asked to leave the stand, and could be heard loudly wailing outside the courtroom. Once the jury had been ushered out and the retired detective was brought back in, he explained that he had been overcome by emotion on seeing the victim’s family members sitting in the audience.
Mackey’s attorney had called for a mistrial repeatedly, but the final straw – what the judge called the “coup de grace” – came Friday, when it emerged that notes taken by a paralegal in the district attorney’s office had not been previously disclosed to the defense. The notes, discovered this week, described a “proffer” meeting with Mackey’s now-deceased co-defendant, Terrence Moore.
Assistant District Attorney Maxine Rosenthal argued strenuously that the notes contained no information that had not previously been revealed in Moore’s initial arrest interview with detectives, the video of which had been provided to the defense. But the judge said that it was the defense’s right to make that evaluation. In issuing her ruling, Judge Mennin said the pattern of late disclosure by prosecutors pointed to “sloppiness at best and [was] at worst unprofessional.”
A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office told West Side Rag via an emailed statement: “We are committed to pursuing justice in this case and plan to retry it on April 13th.”
Hernandez was found by her sister unconscious and bound in her ransacked West 83rd Street apartment on January 18, 2023. EMTs and paramedics made extensive efforts to revive her, but were unsuccessful. Investigators determined she had been sexually abused and strangled.
Mackey, who had worked as a temporary superintendent in the building about six months before, was identified by witnesses as having been in the building that day. A search of his residence found rope, similar to the kind that had been found binding Hernandez, and a key, which detectives said opened the door to her apartment. Mackey conceded that he was in the building on the day of the murder but has denied he was in Hernandez’s apartment or that he committed the crimes.
The trial had included emotional testimony from the victim’s family members and the building’s super, which they will now have to deliver at the new trial. Other family members and friends have also been regularly sitting in the courtroom audience, including during sessions with graphic crime scene photos, and were visibly frustrated by Friday’s turn of events.
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