Getting a conviction reversed is hard because the court system was built upon faith in the jury trial, said Brandon Garrett, a law professor at the University of Virginia who serves on the advisory board of the National Registry of Exonerations. “Beyond a reasonable doubt,” the legal standard at trial, is no longer good enough. The legal standards for reversing a conviction are intended to be high, but whether an argument meets those standards is up to the interpretation of a judge, who has discretion to overturn a conviction and call for a new trial.

Certain forms of evidence — such as a witness who recants — tend to be less persuasive. “There is the concern that motives may change over time,” said Garrett. “We don't know whether the person lied then or now. Either way we know that they're a liar. And judges tend not to trust evidence that comes up years and years later.”

The most persuasive new evidence is DNA evidence, present in less than 10% of criminal cases. Perhaps the next most effective type is when another person confesses to the crime. That’s the sort Buari thought he had.

He got the first letter from Dwight Robinson in 2001, two years after Robinson was sentenced to 25 years to life on charges that he murdered a rival dealer. Robinson said he had become overcome with guilt shortly after he began his prison term. He had done a few stints in jail for drugs, but had never done heavy time in a penitentiary before. “This ain’t a place for nobody,” Robinson said.

He had personal interests in mind too. Robinson maintained his innocence on his own case. One of the witnesses who identified him was cousins with a good friend of Buari, and Robinson hoped that Buari could persuade that witness to recant.

“Maybe we could help each other,” said Robinson. “At the end of the day, it’s two men locked away for no reason, and maybe one day we’ll both be free.”

But he did not bring up his case in those early letters. Instead he wrote about the mistakes he had made that led to Buari’s imprisonment.

“What’s good?” Robinson wrote to Buari. “I know that you ain’t hear from me in a while. I’m having it hard living with what I did to you, my brother.”

It was a long letter, four pages on binder paper, written in black ink in neat looping print, explaining the murders, the squashed beefs, the squad of loyal soldiers — and the Machiavellian plot to eliminate the block’s previous kingpin.

“I’m the puppet master,” the letter stated. “How you think I got them to sit down and aim on you?” But the purpose of the letter was not to gloat.

“I know for a fact you wouldn’t of [sic] flipped on us like we flipped on you,” it said. “I hope you find it in your heart of hearts to forgive me for all this sucka shit. … Yo Cal I’m gonna make this shit right. If I have anything to say about it you’ll be back in court to clear your name.”

Robinson acted on his words. In summer 2003, he approached an inmate, Kenneth Smith, who worked as a law clerk at the library. Robinson initially spoke to Smith about his own case, but then “Dwight told me about another crime, a double murder that took place in the Bronx,” Smith stated in an affidavit. Robinson told him that he was the killer “and he had his friends come into court and lie so some else [sic] got convicted for the crime,” Smith said.

A few months later, on Nov. 18, Robinson gave a statement, signed and notarized at Clinton Correctional Facility. “I was the one who shot Jay and Cal on June 25th, 95,” it stated. “When I didn’t succeed, then utilized the judicial system by orchestrating a murder case against Cal with the help of my faithful friends. ... My decision to use that Judicial system was easy being that I’ve witnessed that very system on numerous occasions wrongly arrest Cal in 93 and 94 for murders he didn’t commit. ... I capitalized on the benefits of avoiding investigations, while obtaining a get out of jail free card.”

The detectives and prosecutors, Robinson said, “wanted Cal just as much if not more than me.”

In December, Buari’s lawyer, Brian Stull, told him about a letter that he had received from Dwight Robinson. Robinson had written, “I would like very much for you to put together a full confession affidavit saying that I, Dwight Robinson was the person who committed the September 1992 double homicide of the Harris brothers that Calvin Buari is currently incarcerated for.”

The affidavit was finalized by the end of the month.

By chance, Buari was transferred that December into Clinton, where Robinson was serving his time. Buari’s first week there, he was eating lunch in the mess hall when Robinson spotted him and called his name. Robinson stood beside two other inmates. One of them, Dondi Youmans, later recalled in an affidavit that Robinson said to Buari, “I already talked to your lawyer. They know you innocent. Come out to the yard tonight so we can talk.”

Buari and Robinson met in the yard that night and walked over to an empty corner. They embraced tightly.

“Love you, man,” Robinson said to Buari.

“Love you more,” Buari replied.

According to Buari, Robinson said that he had killed the Harris brothers because he didn’t want to share the profits from a stash of pilfered cocaine. Robinson disputes this story. But, he said, he did assure Buari that he would do what he could to get him free.

“I felt the remorse,” Buari said.

Over the following weeks, Robinson worked to tear down the case against Buari. He called Buari’s wife Pam for help tracking down the other witnesses.

“As a man I already know what I did was wrong and I’m gonna correct my mistakes,” he told her, in a call recorded by the prison.

Pam told Robinson that she didn’t believe he could undo what he had done. “These dudes ain’t gonna speak, never gonna speak,” she told him. “They don’t care. Y’all have to realize that not everybody cares.”

But some of them did care. Two witnesses, Kintu Effort and Lamont Seabrook, recanted their testimony in signed affidavits. Effort said he testified to avoid being indicted, and that he was with Buari running away during the gunfire. Seabrook said he was afraid Robinson would kill him if he didn’t cooperate, and that he and another witness, Jerry Connor, were at his grandparents’ house when they heard the shots.

Buari’s lawyers prepared a motion to vacate the conviction. Robinson’s confession was the centerpiece of the argument, with statements from Effort, Seabrook, and Kenneth Smith providing support. Buari believed he was about to be free again.

“I thought, Finally truth is gonna come out,” he said. “I thought about being back in the Bronx soon.”

For the third time he would slip away from authorities when they thought they had him trapped. That damn black magic! he imagined them cursing.

“If I have something to say about it you should be going back down soon,” Robinson told Buari in another letter. “I’m going to ride this all the way out until you touch down.”