WE the undersigned demand that the District Attorney of New York County refrain from dismissing an indictment in People v. Strauss-Khan under Article 210 of the Criminal Procedure Law because of credibility questions unrelated to any acts in the indictment. WE, also note that issues of credibility have always been resolved by a jury of the accused’s peers at trial and not by a prosecutor before trial as an invasion on the province of the jury.

We are concerned about the fair administration of justice in New York given the enactment of the gradual emancipation statute and, afterwards, the enactment of a state-wide prison system on the same date in 1799 and, in 1991, a blue-ribbon commission found that New York’s judicial system was “infested with racism” with no remedies being proposed to correct this racial inequity.

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