To Try and Summarize As Briefly As Possible:

I filed my first appeal motions in January of 2004 setting off what would become a 17 year legal battle. The number of motions (and counter-motions) filed over the years are uncountable, utterly uncountable. Dozens of brilliant and dedicated attorneys volunteered thousands of hours pro-bono towards a cause deeply believed in.  As a mental exercise in memory I was able to count that my appeal traveled through at least 12 different courts across state, appellate and federal.  Off the top of my head I tried to recall how many attorneys represented me over 35 years and I reached a count of twenty-six.  But really, what gets lost in all these numbers regarding my appeal is that I was arrested when I was 18-year-old and I write this now thirty-four years later.

The most important aspect of the American criminal justice appeals process that nobody understand is this: The facts of the case and the evidence are rarely considered under review.  Procedure and policy trumps evidence.  Example:

My first round of appeals reached the Federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals (the second-highest court in the country).  The three judge panel declined to review any of the constitutional claims raised in the motion papers because (a) the claims were only valid for review “after trial” — meaning that since there was no trial, the District Attorney was free to prosecute in any manner they choose; and (b) the paperwork was filed 14 days “late”.  Federal Habeas Corpus rules require petitions based upon newly discovered evidence to be filed within 365 days upon discovery of the evidence.  After years of arguing over what constitutes “discovered” in terms of being in material possession of newly discovered exonerating evidence, the court ruled the paperwork was late and declined to review any of the exculpatory evidence, or testimony.

Between 2010 and 2013 the Nassau County DA engaged in a conviction review cloaked in secrecy with no intention of impartiality.  Three years of my life was devoted to this re-investigation, during which:

• Five of the 13 people who accused me of sexual abuse back in 1988 stated as adults that they were never sexually abused;
• Perhaps two dozen other former students stated they never witnessed anything untoward during the computer classes.  These were people who were students alongside others who made claims of being sexually abused in a public group-abuse scenario during the computer classes;
• My co-defendant (turned states-witness against me) who provided false testimony against me, himself, and two of his best friends, came forward to explain how he was tortured by the police and the DA’s office into perjuring himself in order to avoid decades in prison.

The District Attorney’s 155 page report concluded, “the integrity of Jesse Friedman’s conviction has not been undermined by allegations of an overzealous investigation and prosecution, or by any new information. After a three-year investigation of the facts and circumstances surrounding Jesse Friedman’s guilty plea, the District Attorney concludes that Jesse Friedman was not wrongfully convicted.“

To quote Arlo Guthrie, “This was a typical case of American blind justice and there wasn’t nothing I could do about it.”

My second round of appeals took nine years to return back federal district court. In August 2021 Judge Seybert denied the petition (Decision pdf) on the grounds that since I am no longer “in custody” of the government (neither in prison or on parole) then the federal court had no jurisdiction.  The Court declined to review any of the dozens of statements from recanting witnesses, or thousands of pages of documents submitted.

It is nearly impossible to even moderately concisely summarize the decades’ long legal proceedings, review the thousands of pages of exculpatory evidence, understand the nearly 40 eye-witnesses statements affirming they never witnessed any sexual abuse occurring during any of the computer classes, or the 17 years of legal filings.  However…

In November 2020 attorney Rhiya Trivedi filed a motion with the Federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals petitioning for leave to file a Successive Habeas Corpus application.  [PDF] Under current law permission is granted only within an extremely limited breath of condition.

HOWEVER:

Rhiya Trivedi also filed a Declaration —  a  more readable (and laymen rendering) which covers nearly all the bullet points about the case and the appeal.  This is a PDF if you’d prefer, but the FULL TEXT is HERE

Attorney Grace Gill supplied a Declaration PDF to the Circuit Court for the purposes of summarizing and charting  the allegations and an analysis of the allegations in light of the exculpatory statements provided by the 12 non-complaining students from the Friedman classes in which abuse was alleged.

This declaration includes:

• Renderings of computer classroom from inside the Friedman home;
• Charts demonstrating the escalation of the charges against Jesse Friedman;
• Chart analysis of how many frequently witnesses were visited by detectives as the power of the police effort intensified.
• Analysis of the charges demonstrating the implausibility of the allegations; and
• Computer class rosters demonstrating student enrollment of which children were in the same weekly classes as other children, and the enormity of the exculpatory eye-witnesses.