Richard Cotto v. Victor Herbert, Warden, Attica Correctional Facility

STRAUB, Circuit Judge.

Shortly before 8:00 p.m. on November 28, 1992, at the corner of East 103rd Street and Second Avenue in Manhattan, Steven Davilla was shot. He died at the hospital four hours later. After approximately a year, petitioner-appellant Richard Cotto was arrested and charged with Da-villa’s murder. In the months before Cotto’s trial began in March 1996, Anthony Echevarria, a neighborhood resident who knew both Cotto and Davilla, told law en forcement officers that he saw Cotto shoot Davilla. When interviewed by detectives shortly after the shooting, Echevarria had given a false…