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The following has been cut & pasted from several sources and has also been, at least somewhat, paraphrased:
The case is being revisited because former New York Supreme Court Judge Frank Barbaro (white himself), a longtime champion of civil rights, has since said he believes he denied a fair trial to Donald Kagan (a white man), who claimed he killed a black man (Wavell Wint) in self-defense.
In 1999 Judge Barbaro found Kegan guilty of second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon. Kagan was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison, where he remains today.
Barbaro, now 86, said in an exclusive interview with CNN earlier this year, "I couldn't get out of my mind the look on the lawyer's face when I said I found him guilty. And the defendant on the stand, like he was pleading to me, 'It just happened, it just happened,' and that was sort of haunting me."
In 2011 Barbaro called Kagan's defense attorney Jeff Adler and made an amazing admission:
"I think I made a mistake," he told him. He asked the attorney to send him the transcript of the trial.
After reading his own trial record, Barbaro came to the conclusion that in his quest for equality between the races, he completely ignored the trial evidence that had to do with Kagan's claim of self-defense. He realized he really hadn't considered whether Kagan felt an imminent fear for his life during the confrontation.
Barbaro, who by then had retired and no longer had jurisdiction in the case, became, in effect, a witness for the defense of the man he had convicted years earlier.
Barbaro testified at the December 2013 hearing and was cross-examined by the prosecution, who questioned the judge's memory of events in an effort to discount his admission of racial bias.
After testifying last year, Barbaro said, "It wasn't difficult to come forward. It is painful to know I sent an innocent man to jail."
Kagan, now 39, becomes eligible for parole in November.
New York City Criminal Court Judge ShawnDya L. Simpson (a black woman) has continued the case until September 22, 2014.
Judge Simpson, who presided at the December 2013 hearing, already had postponed making a ruling in the case twice this year.