In the ongoing civil litigation over one of upstate New York's most notorious wrongful convictions, a key paid expert for Syracuse and Onondaga County has reversed his publicly stated position on whether prosecutorial misconduct occurred in the case that sent Anthony Broadwater to prison for 16 years.
Broadwater was convicted in 1982 of raping author Alice Sebold near Syracuse University campus in 1981. The conviction was thrown out in 2021 after current District Attorney William Fitzpatrick argued that prosecutors should have dropped the case when Sebold misidentified her attacker at a police lineup, selecting a different man as her assailant. Broadwater spent nearly four decades as either incarcerated or a registered sex offender before his exoneration.
Bennett Gershman, a veteran Pace University law professor, told ProPublica in 2024 that prosecutors had 'manufactured a case' against Broadwater and called it 'the most heinous kind of prosecutorial misconduct — when the prosecutor is creating guilt.' He described the conduct as 'so much worse than plain misconduct. This is tyranny.'
What the Right Is Saying
Defenders of the original prosecution argue that hindsight analysis of decades-old cases risks imposing modern standards retroactively on prosecutors working under different legal frameworks and with less developed understanding of eyewitness identification issues.
Some legal commentators have noted that while Gershman's reversal may appear unusual, experts are permitted to revise their opinions based on deeper examination of evidence. They point out that civil litigation involves different evidentiary standards than criminal proceedings and that the city and county have an obligation to defend against financial claims.
Lawyers for Syracuse and Onondaga County declined to comment on the expert's changed position or the pending litigation.
What the Left Is Saying
Criminal justice reform advocates have expressed alarm at Gershman's reversal, raising concerns about the integrity of expert testimony in civil cases involving wrongful convictions.
Organizations including the Innocence Project, which works to exonerate wrongfully convicted individuals, have long argued that prosecutorial accountability is essential to preventing future miscarriages of justice. The group has documented hundreds of cases where prosecutors failed to disclose exculpatory evidence or engaged in other misconduct that led to innocent people serving prison sentences.
Defense attorneys representing Broadwater have not commented on Gershman's changed position, but legal observers note that the reversal comes as Broadwater seeks financial compensation for the decades he spent incarcerated based on what multiple parties now acknowledge was a flawed prosecution.
What the Numbers Show
According to court records, Broadwater was convicted in 1982 based primarily on Sebold's eyewitness identification. He served 16 years in state prison before being released and spent an additional 23 years as a registered sex offender before his conviction was vacated in 2021.
DA Fitzpatrick stated publicly that the prosecution should have ended when Sebold identified someone other than Broadwater at a lineup, saying: 'Case is over. Stop.' The district attorney's office supported vacating the conviction after reviewing evidence including testimony about the lineup identification and broader patterns of sexual assaults in the Syracuse area during the period.
Gershman's December 2025 expert report concluded that 'the city’s prosecutors did not engage in misconduct' in pursuing Broadwater's prosecution, a position directly at odds with his public statements made approximately one year earlier. Legal ethics experts quoted by ProPublica described the reversal as 'odd' and potentially undermining to the expert's credibility with future juries.
The Bottom Line
The case highlights tensions between criminal and civil proceedings involving wrongful convictions. While DA Fitzpatrick publicly acknowledged prosecutorial failures that led to Broadwater's imprisonment, municipal defendants in the civil suit are working to limit financial liability for those same historical actions.
Legal ethics experts noted that while changing an expert opinion based on new evidence is not unethical, providing strongly worded public commentary and then testifying for one party raises questions about the boundaries between journalism and litigation. A jury hearing the Broadwater case may now weigh Gershman's conflicting statements when evaluating his credibility as a witness.
Broadwater's lawsuit seeking damages for wrongful conviction remains pending in New York state court.