John Bunn (exonerated prisoner)
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John Bunn (born 1976) is an African American man wrongfully convicted of a murder committed in 1991, when he was 14. Bunn spent over 16 years in prison and nearly 12 on parole before he was exonerated in 2018.[1] After his release, Bunn founded a nonprofit that aims to educate incarcerated youth and provide access to books to promote literacy.[2]
Bunn grew up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. He and his younger sister were raised by his mother.[1]
Murder conviction
On August 14, 1991, two Rikers Island corrections officers were shot in their car during a robbery in the Kingsborough Housing Project; one died. The surviving officer, Robert Crosson, stated that the shooters were two light-skinned black men in their twenties.[3]
Louis N. Scarcella, an NYPD detective later accused of serially falsifying evidence, arrested 14-year-old Bunn and 17-year-old Rosean Hargrave on an anonymous tip the following day, although neither teen fit the physical descriptions provided by Crosson. Crosson subsequently identified the two as the shooters, in a photo lineup organized by Scarcella's partner. In November 1992, a jury convicted both teens of second degree murder. Hargrave was sentenced to 30 years to life and Bunn was sentenced to 7 years to life.[3]