ALBANY — A former Albany man who spent nearly three decades in state prison for his 1998 conviction on charges of attempting to fatally shoot two city police officers was set free this week after a legal proceeding determined he was innocent.
The investigation that led to the prosecution and conviction of then-29-year-old Corey Young is among a series of cases in which defendants have been released from prison after new evidence emerged that cast doubt on their guilt.
The cases have also exposed the questionable tactics of Albany detectives who in the 1990s and early 2000s were known to use coercive tactics to get signed confessions from suspects. Those same tactics also were used by certain detectives to obtain incriminating statements from witnesses who were sometimes threatened that they or their family members might face legal peril if they did not implicate the suspects who were in the crosshairs of the police…