ALBANY — Sherodd Craft, who was released from state prison a year ago after a judge vacated his conviction for a 2001 shooting that killed a teenage girl in Albany, on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Albany and three former city detectives who had integral roles in the investigation.
Craft, 46, was sentenced in July 2003 to 50 years to life in prison after an Albany County jury convicted him of murder and attempted murder. But he and his attorneys have always maintained that he was innocent and that his conviction was the result of coercive tactics that were used by former detectives — and sanctioned by top officials in the department — to obtain purported confessions from suspects or incriminating statements from alleged witnesses.
In Craft’s case, like other murder and attempted murder cases that have been overturned in recent years in Albany, there was no forensic evidence or eyewitnesses tying him to the murder of Shakira Chambers. She was hit by five rounds while sitting on the front steps of a South End residence next to Javonn Morton when two men wearing hoodies and armed with guns jumped out of a vehicle and opened fire. Morton, according to police, had been the intended target but Chambers was killed in the crossfire…