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Levon "Bo" Jones Fifth Innocent
Death Row Inmate Freed In Past 11 Months And 129th Since 1973.
May 2, 2008
CONTACT: Will Matthews, ACLU, (212) 549-2582 or 2666;
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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.
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