A Brooklyn man who has spent the past 29 years in prison for murder is expected to walk free on Wednesday.
David McCallum, together with co-defendant Willie Stuckey, were found guilty of kidnapping and shooting Nathan Blenner, 20, in a Bushwick park in October 1985. The two 16-year-olds were sentenced to 25 years to life behind bars the next year.
Stuckey died in prison in 2001, but McCallum has had his innocence championed by late boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, who served 19 years in prison after he was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1966.
David McCallum, who was just 16 when he was found guilty of kidnapping and shooting a man in 1985, is expected to have his conviction overturned by a New York judge today. Just two months before Carter died in April he wrote an op-ed for the New York Daily News in which he called for Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson to review McCallum’s case.
“My single regret in life is that David McCallum… is still in prison,” Carter wrote. “Knowing what I do, I am certain that when the facts are brought to light, Thompson will recommend his immediate release.”