After Key Evidence Was Withheld, 2 Men Spent 3 Decades in Prison

Carlton Roman and Christopher Ellis were freed after judges in separate cases found that they had been unjustly convicted.

At the time of one murder, in 1989 in Queens, Carlton Roman was running errands with his fiancée and infant daughter. When an unrelated killing occurred on Long Island in 1990, Christopher Ellis was DJing his brother’s birthday party. Although there was no significant forensic or ballistic evidence implicating either man in the separate cases, each was tried, found guilty and sentenced to prison. Mr. Roman, who was 26 when he was arrested, and Mr. Ellis, who was 20, were incarcerated for more than three decades, spending their 30th, 40th and 50th birthdays behind bars. On Monday, the two men, both of whom are Black, were freed by state judges in courtrooms 11 miles apart who found they had been unjustly convicted.