[WCADP-list] North Carolina man is the 129th person freed from death row since 1976

[wcadp-list at lists.drizzle.com]

Innocent North Carolina Man Exonerated After 14 Years On Death Row

 

Levon "Bo" Jones Fifth Innocent Death Row Inmate Freed In Past 11 Months And
129th Since 1976

 

KENANSVILLE, NC - An innocent man who spent 14 years on North Carolina's
death row after being wrongfully convicted for a 1987 murder will be
released from prison today. Jones has been represented by American Civil
Liberties Union Capital Punishment Project lawyers Cassandra Stubbs and
Brian Stull, along with North Carolina attorney Ernest "Buddy" Connor.

 

Levon "Bo" Jones, an African American man who has always maintained his
innocence, was sentenced to death in 1993 for the murder of Leamon Grady, a
white man. Jones is the fifth innocent death row inmate to be exonerated in
the United States in the past 11 months, and the third innocent North
Carolina death row inmate to be granted release in the past six months. He
is the 129th death row exoneree since 1973.

 

"We never had any doubt about Bo Jones' innocence," said Connor. "We knew
when we started the case that there were serious holes in the evidence.
After we began seriously investigating the case, it completely unraveled."

 

A federal judge ordered Jones off death row in 2006 and overturned his
conviction, declaring that the defense provided by Jones' initial defense
attorneys was so poor that they missed critical evidence pointing to his
innocence.  After keeping him imprisoned in anticipation of a retrial, the
Duplin County, N.C. District Attorney announced Thursday that the state was
dropping all charges and Jones would be released. 

 

The sole witness accusing Jones of the murder, Lovely Lorden, admitted in an
affidavit filed last month that she "was certain that Bo did not have
anything to do with Mr. Grady's murder" and that she did not know what
happened the night Grady was murdered. A new trial had been set to begin May
12.

 

Jones' exoneration and release comes two weeks after a U.S. Supreme Court
ruling in Baze v. Rees upholding the three drug lethal injection method of
capital punishment used in Kentucky.  Other states have begun to lift a de
facto national moratorium on the use of the death penalty.

 

"This case highlights the serious and rampant flaws inherent in the death
penalty," Stubbs said. "A system that can't protect the innocent from
conviction shouldn't gamble with life and death.  This case - and those of
the many other innocent exonerees - should give states pause about lifting
moratoriums after the Baze decision." 

 

Stull said there is a direct link between Jones' 14 years on death row and
the quality of his first trial counsel.

 

"This case points out the problems with capital counsel in many parts of the
country," he said. "Bo Jones's first trial lawyer never bothered to get the
many conflicting statements of Lovely Lorden, let alone do the kind of
investigation necessary in a first degree murder case.  We will never know
if Lorden would have admitted the truth earlier had the case been
investigated and had she been adequately cross-examined."   

 

Jones was represented in post-conviction by the North Carolina Center for
Death Penalty Litigation, which persuaded the federal court to grant him a
new trial.

 

Larry Lamb, a codefendant of Jones who has also always maintained his
innocence, remains behind bars, serving a life sentence. Lamb turned down a
plea offer of a six year sentence and was also convicted based on the
testimony of Lorden.  He plans to ask the newly formed North Carolina
Innocence Inquiry Commission to review his case. 

 


  _____  

To change the address where you receive these emails please send us a note
at info at abolishdeathpenalty.org. To unsubscribe from all future mailings
simply send an email to wcadp-list-request at lists.drizzle.com with the word
"unsubscribe" in the subject (you can leave the rest of the email blank).
You will receive a confirmation email. Be sure to respond to the
confirmation email otherwise you will not be removed from our list. We
welcome all feedback. Please send any comments or criticism to
info at abolishdeathpenalty.org.

The Washington Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
It's easy to support the death penalty when you don't have all the facts.
P.O. Box 3045
Seattle, WA 98114-3045
phone (206) 622-8952
fax (206) 622-2016
www.abolishdeathpenalty.org <http://www.abolishdeathpenalty.org/> 
 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.drizzle.com/pipermail/wcadp-list/attachments/20080506/e1080f2c/attachment.html