A Brooklyn judge on March 16, 2026 threw out Kenneth Windley’s 2007 robbery conviction and dismissed the case, freeing a man who had spent 19 years in prison for a crime that two other men later confessed to committing — and that the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Conviction Review Unit concluded he did not commit.

The case

On April 1, 2005, 70-year-old Gerald Ross returned to his Crown Heights home after stops at the bank and the post office and was robbed. A jury convicted Windley of second-degree robbery in March 2007, and he was sentenced to 20 years to life. He served 19 years before walking free.

The reinvestigation by Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez’s Conviction Review Unit (CRU) unraveled the case. The unit obtained sworn statements and interviews from two other men who admitted they robbed Ross and said Windley had no part in it. Both men, the unit found, had extensive criminal histories and had together committed seven robberies between April 2005 and February 2006 — all in the same neighborhood and following the same pattern: elderly men followed home from banks and then robbed. The two men’s accounts of the Ross robbery were corroborated by recorded prison phone calls and emails the unit reviewed.

At the joint request of prosecutors and Windley’s lawyers, Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Matthew D’Emic vacated the conviction and dismissed the case.

A unit working at a slower pace

Windley’s was Brooklyn’s first — and, for the year, only — exoneration of 2025, a striking number for a unit that once cleared as many as 10 people in a single year. Established under former DA Ken Thompson and continued under Gonzalez, the Brooklyn CRU became a national model: it has cleared more than 500 people over its history, a figure that includes a small number of deeply investigated individual cases plus hundreds of convictions vacated en masse because they relied on the work of 14 police officers credibly accused of misconduct.

The recent slowdown is real. The unit operated for a stretch without a permanent leader after Charles Linehan, who ran the 16-person bureau for three years, resigned in January 2025 to enter private practice. Leadership churn and a thinning pipeline of viable claims have both been cited as factors in the lower output.

A citywide and national decline

The trend is not Brooklyn’s alone. The National Registry of Exonerations recorded just five exonerations across all five boroughs in the prior year — the lowest citywide total in 15 years — part of a broader national decline in wrongful-conviction findings. Reform advocates and some researchers disagree on what the drop means: whether it reflects that the most egregious historical cases have already been cleared, that conviction-review units have lost momentum or resources, or some combination.

Defense lawyers and innocence advocates have warned that a falling number of exonerations should not be read as evidence that wrongful convictions have stopped occurring, pointing to the years it took to surface cases like Windley’s and to the dependence of any review on a unit’s willingness to dig.

Why it matters

For Windley, the ruling ended nearly two decades of incarceration for a robbery the DA’s own office now says he did not commit. For the broader debate, the case is a reminder of both the value and the fragility of conviction-review work in New York City — capable of correcting a 19-year error, but doing so at a far slower rate than at the units’ peak, and dependent on staffing and political will that have visibly fluctuated.

Verification

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Kenneth Windley?
A Brooklyn man convicted of second-degree robbery in March 2007 and sentenced to 20 years to life. He served 19 years before his conviction was vacated on March 16, 2026 after two other men confessed to the crime.
Why was Windley's conviction thrown out?
Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez's Conviction Review Unit found that two other men, who had a documented pattern of similar robberies of elderly victims, committed the 2005 robbery and confessed that Windley was not involved. Their accounts were corroborated by prison calls and emails.
Who is the Brooklyn District Attorney?
Eric Gonzalez, whose office runs one of the nation's best-known Conviction Review Units.
Are wrongful-conviction findings declining?
Yes. Brooklyn's unit recorded just one exoneration in 2025, and the National Registry of Exonerations reported only five across the five boroughs the prior year — the lowest citywide total in 15 years.