NY- A 400 pound man goes free because of an unfair police lineup procedure.

At 400 pounds, the scales of justice had to tip in his favor.

A convicted robber got a massive break today when an appeals court overturned his conviction, finding the lineup he was picked out of was unfair because it didn't include any other 400-pound men.

Eric Kenley, 48, was "charged with two robberies that occurred on the same morning" in Lower Manhattan in 2007, the Appellate Division decision recounts.

The corpulent con was identified as the driver of the getaway car in both robberies. According to his criminal complaint, when the victim in the second robbery looked at him, he pulled out a handgun and told the person "to look straight ahead."

The Appellate Division ruling says "the witnesses to the robberies described the driver of the getaway car, respectively, as 'a huge, big, fat, black guy,' 'a real big, real huge black guy,' and 'very heavyset and large'" - descriptions that certainly fit the 6-foot-4-inch Kenley.

However, those descriptions didn't fit the other people in the lineup, none of whom were are as supersized as Kenley, the appeals court found.

"Although the fillers were large men, there was a very noticeable weight difference between defendant and the fillers," the ruling said - so much so that normal police tricks for dealing with such problems didn't work.

"While the lineup participants were seated, and this can sometimes satisfactorily minimize differences in weight, it is clear from the photo that there was a marked difference between defendant and the fillers," and that difference was too big for the appeals court to overlook.

"Instead, this situation would call for the use of some kind of covering to conceal the weight difference."


Link:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/lack_of_pounders_in_lineup_gets_j0zmhPjkfePjU5GbB6lS1J