Wrongly convicted man freed by Queens court after he served eight years for murder of 14-year-old girl

In his eighth year behind bars, Shamel Capers walked into a Queens courtroom shackled and handcuffed — and walked out into his mother’s waiting arms, cleared of a wrongful murder conviction.

“I just want to get back to my family,” said Capers, now 24 and free for the first time since his July 2014 arrest in the fatal shooting of 14-year-old honor student D’Aja Robinson.

“It’s a lot to take in ... I fought hard all of these years for my innocence,” Capers said.

His attorneys charged prosecutors and police rigged the investigation into the D’Aja’s random killing, which occurred May 8, 2013, as she was headed home from a Sweet 16 party.

D’Aja was in the window seat of an MTA bus when she was shot. Capers was fingered as the shooter, and found guilty at a trial in 2017 of murder and criminal possession of a weapon.

“We worked our hardest, and we got the best outcome that we could have,” said Capers, who appeared for court in a dark teal suit and tie along with the shackles and cuffs.

Prosecutors originally alleged Capers, of Brooklyn, fired several shots into the bus where D’Aja was sitting. But his lawyers charged that prosecutors and cops coerced witness testimony and withheld evidence, leading to his conviction at trial and a 15-years-to-life sentence.

Evidence clearing Capers in the homicide was never provided to his defense attorney, and a key witness in the case recanted his testimony after alleging he was pressured by prosecutors into identifying the innocent man, said the defendant’s pro bono lawyers from the firm of Debevoise & Plimpton.

Investigators for the newly released man “uncovered serious misconduct by prosecutors and detectives that led to Mr. Capers’ wrongful conviction,” his lawyers said.

The Queens DA’s Conviction Integrity Unit was notified in mid-2020, with the prosecutors agreeing to investigate the case and finally clearing Capers after a two-year probe. Investigators conducted dozens of interviews and listened to thousands of prison conversations to determine his innocence.

“Not everybody gets a chance,” said Capers’ lawyer, Winston Paes. “He’s fortunate things worked out.”

“For there to be justice in the criminal justice system, and public faith in its outcomes, it is incumbent on prosecutors to follow the facts wherever they lead,” said Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz, who filed a motion to vacate Capers’ two convictions.

“My thoughts today are with D’Aja Robinson’s family,” said Katz, although the girl’s grandparents were badly shaken by the decision.

“We are disgusted with the whole thing,” said Cheryl Sands, 65, through tears. “It’s reopening an old wound. ... This is a travesty of justice.”

Sands said she couldn’t sleep after learning this past Monday that Capers would be cleared in the killing of her grandchild, adding that the girl’s mom was reeling at the news delivered in a phone call.

“She’s doing the best she can,” said Cheryl Sands. “It’s really a sad thing they did to her. She’s been through a lot. They treated her like she was nothing, like she was a piece of dirt.”

Her husband Willie said D’Aja’s younger siblings grew up without knowing their sister.

“That’s so sad, that they never got the chance to meet her, to experience her,” he said. “She would’ve loved it.”

Four years before Capers was convicted in 2017 of shooting the teen in the head — and one month after the killing — co-defendant Kevin McClinton was arrested while on the lam in South Carolina.

McClinton, then 22, was affiliated with a local gang and convicted of second-degree murder in the shooting, authorities said. He remains behind bars serving a term of 25 years to life.

According to Capers’ attorneys, McClinton identified their client as the actual gunman when questioned by NYPD detectives investigating the attack on the bus in Jamaica.

From jail, McClinton urged family members to contact his fellow gangbangers with instructions to wrongly implicate Capers as the shooter, Capers’ lawyers say.

Some of the recorded phone calls checked by investigators involved a witness who claimed he saw Capers pull the trigger, said Bryce Benjet of the Queens Conviction Review Unit.

That witness “is heard saying he’s lying on multiple occasions,” said Benjet. Queens Supreme Court Judge Michelle Johnson said the witness’ recantation and other evidence persuaded her to drop the case against Capers.

In reality, the defense lawyers say, McClinton was the shooter. McClinton’s conviction and sentence in the case were not affected by Thursday’s events.

Even as they worked to bring out the facts in Capers’ case, investigators kept D’Aja Robinson’s “senseless” death in mind, said Benjet.

“She had a bright future ahead of her. She did nothing wrong,” said Benjet. “Early in the process we told the Robinson family nothing that we do or say should diminish that.”