Louisiana

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Defendant(s)

Date of Alleged Crime

Williams was convicted of the armed robbery of a 7-Eleven convenience store.  Two 18 to 20-year-old black males robbed the store of $15 at about 10:54 p.m.  One held a gun while the other took money from the cash register.  The cashier called police and her call was logged in at 10:56 p.m.  Two teenagers had seen the robbers flee in a brown car.  At 11:06 p.m., police stopped Williams and his friend Ernest Brown about 1 1/2 miles from the crime scene.  They were driving a brown car of similar description as that of the robbers.  The cashier identified the 28-year-old Williams as being the unarmed robber.  She cleared Brown of involvement.  Neither man had any money or gun on them, but police found two six-packs of Pepsi in the car.

Shortly before being stopped by the police, Williams spent the last of his money buying gas at a nearby Exxon station.  Unbeknownst to Williams, Brown had stolen the Pepsi’s from the gas station.  A cashier at the Exxon station had seen Brown take the Pepsi’s while Williams was paying for his gas.  She had called police shortly after the crime and estimated that the two men drove away at 10:45 p.m.

It took 9 to 11 minutes to drive from the Exxon station to the 7-Eleven (7 minutes if one caught all the traffic lights).  Thus, by the Exxon cashier’s estimate, Williams had time to rob the 7-Eleven at 10:54 p.m.  Police, however, refused to refine the estimate by revealing the exact time the cashier reported the Pepsi theft.  They had no trouble noting the exact time when the 7-Eleven cashier reported that store’s armed robbery.

According to the police, Williams dropped Brown off after 10:45 p.m., picked up an armed gunman, robbed the 7-Eleven, dropped off the gunman, picked up Brown, and remained within 1 1/2 miles of the crime scene when he was stopped by police at 11:06 p.m.  This theory is a complicated and unlikely 20-minute series of events.

According to Brown, the 7-Eleven cashier was uncertain about her identification of Williams, but she denied she was uncertain at trial.  The Exxon cashier was never called to testify.  Although Brown readily admitted the Pepsi theft, neither he nor Williams was charged with that crime.  Williams was sentenced to 50 years in prison for being an unarmed participant in a $15 robbery.

In Oct. 2006, the Louisiana Parole Board paroled Williams after he served 21 years in prison.  Although factual innocence is not grounds for parole, privately the Board members expressed their belief that Williams was innocent.  (CM)  [1/08]

Thompson, who had no history of violence, was charged with the robbery murder of 34-year-old Ray Liuzza, Jr., a hotel executive.  In 1985, the day after his picture was in the newspaper and on the evening news, three victims of an attempted carjacking came forward and stated Thompson was the perpetrator.  Even though the attempted carjacking occurred after the murder, Thompson was convicted of the attempted robbery prior to his murder trial.  Thompson was then convicted of murder and sentenced to death in part because of the prior conviction.  The prior conviction prevented him from testifying own his own behalf.

In 1999, intentionally hidden blood evidence from the attempted carjacking incident surfaced that showed the perpetrator had a different blood type than Thompson.  That conviction was overturned and led to his murder conviction being overturned.  At the murder retrial, the defense tracked down an eyewitness who had fled the area out of fear for her life a month after the murder.  She testified in the defense's favor and Thompson was acquitted.  (Times-Picayune)  [9/05]

Baldwin, a black man, was convicted of the murder of Mary Lee Peters, the godmother of Baldwin’s child.  Peters, an 84-year-old West Monroe woman, was beaten to death during a robbery of her home.  After the trial, defense lawyers found a hotel receipt proving that Baldwin was hundreds of miles away in another state on the night of the murder.  In response, the prosecution claimed that he had driven to the hotel in order to establish an alibi and then returned to Louisiana to commit the murder.  If Baldwin staged his alibi, the prosecution did not explain why he did not have the receipt available for trial.

The main witness against Baldwin was his girlfriend, Marilyn Hampton, who received a life sentence, rather than the death penalty, for her part in the murder. The prosecution claimed that Hampton waited outside in a car while Baldwin committed the murder.  Baldwin allegedly had confessed to the crime and was convicted by an all-white jury.  The judge, the prosecutor, and Baldwin's own court-appointed attorney used racially derogatory language during the trial.  Baldwin was executed in the electric chair on Sept. 10, 1984.  Shortly before the execution, a former sheriff's deputy swore in a statement that Baldwin had been beaten and tortured into a confession by white officers.

Howard Marsellus, the chairman of the Louisiana Board of Pardons and Parole, was troubled that he may have allowed an innocent man to be put to death.  The governor had appointed Marsellus and Marsellus felt he had to go along with the governor wishes that there be no recommendation for clemency in any capital case.  The governor visited Hampton in prison before signing Baldwin’s death warrant.  Marsellus believed the purpose of the visit was to induce Hampton to maintain her original testimony.  Two months later the Board of Pardons and Paroles received Hampton's file marked "Expedite."  Seven years into a life sentence for first-degree murder Hampton was freed.  (JusticeDenied)  [2/07]

After a storm at sea, a shrimp boat named “The Bandit,” containing Alvin Latham and the ship’s captain, Raymond Leiker, failed to return to its home port of Venice, LA.  Latham was picked up at sea 14 hours later holding onto a piece of wood.  He said the storm came up suddenly and that while trying to pull fish into the boat, Leiker’s foot got caught in a fishing net. Latham tried to help Leiker free his foot, but eventually Leiker told him to save himself.  Moments after Latham swam away from the boat, the boat submerged into the sea.

Leiker’s body was found five days after the storm.  The coroner ruled his death a homicide, because an autopsy of the body indicated several defensive stab wounds and a blow to the head.  In addition, Leiker was allegedly attached to the boat and should have sank with it, but was found floating on the surface.

After a grueling eight-hour videotaped interrogation, police got Latham to confess that he clubbed Leiker with a pipe on the back of his head in order to obtain the only life jacket on the boat.  Then after Latham put on the life jacket, Leiker came back at him and Latham used a knife to defend himself.  The case prompted a discussion of "lifeboat ethics" in the press involving the morality of having to kill others in order to survive.

A review of the taped interrogation shows that the confession was involuntary.  Latham repeatedly guessed at details until police accepted his answers.  Secondly, the owner of the boat, who leased it to Leiker, said there were three life jackets on board.  Thirdly, Latham was not wearing a life jacket when he was picked up.

A defense review of the autopsy findings showed that the alleged stab wounds were not very deep.  The defense felt that Leiker’s floating body had been run over by a boat several days after the storm, and that the boat’s propeller had caused the shallow stab wounds and the blow to the head.  The boat owner who found Leiker readily agreed that his body had been run over.  In addition, the owner noted that Leiker was found wearing only one boot, corroborating Latham’s original story.

At Latham’s trial for third degree murder, the prosecution presented Latham’s confession.  However, after the jury watched the entire eight-hour tape of Latham’s interrogation, they acquitted him.  (Forensic Files)

Rickey Johnson was convicted of raping a woman on July 12, 1982 at an apartment complex in Many, LA.  He was convicted solely on the victim's identification.  She was unable to describe any distinguishing marks that Johnson had, including his gold front tooth, despite her testimony of looking at her attacker's face during the entire four hours he was in her bedroom.

In 2001, a close friend and fellow inmate, Calvin Willis, told Johnson to contact the Innocence Project to help exonerate him of his wrongful conviction.  Johnson watched Willis walk out of prison after being exonerated by DNA evidence in 2003.  In Jan. 2008, Johnson was also exonerated after DNA tests showed that another man, John Carnell McNeal, had committed the rape.  McNeal had been convicted in 1984 of raping another woman on April 30, 1983 at the same apartment complex.  (Shreveport Times)  [3/08]

Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace, both blacks, were convicted of murdering white prison guard Brent Miller in Louisiana's State Penitentiary at Angola, the largest U.S. Prison.  Evidence against them seems to depend solely on coerced or bribed testimony.  Woodfox and Wallace were known prison activists, and the conviction allowed the prison to keep them permanently in solitary confinement.

Robert King Wilkerson, also a prison activist, was also held initially in solitary confinement because officially he was "under investigation" for the death of Miller, although he was not at Angola at the time of Miller's death.  Later he was charged and convicted of killing inmate August Kelly, but there was compelling evidence of his innocence.  His conviction was later overturned.  Afterwards, apparently to avoid being sued, the state insisted he plead guilty to conspiracy and receive time served.  Wilkerson agonized over the decision, but agreed to it and was released.  Woodfox got a retrial in 1998, but despite the lack of evidence was re-convicted.  (JD01, Herman Wallace)  [6/05]