New Evidence Surfaces in New Orleans Killings

[Judi Lynn]

Source: New York Times

New Evidence Surfaces in New Orleans Killings
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
Published: March 1, 2010

NEW ORLEANS — Early one morning in June 2006, when this city was only half full and in many areas still desolate from the flooding after Hurricane Katrina, five men were shot to death in an S.U.V. in the Central City neighborhood. The killings sent the city into an uproar, galvanizing politicians, who spoke of “Hurricane Crime,” and adding urgency to the city’s request for hundreds of Louisiana National Guard soldiers to return and patrol the streets.

The criminal case that followed was just as incendiary in many ways. But it ended this past August with a death penalty verdict, the first in a dozen years in a New Orleans murder case, against a 23-year-old man named Michael Anderson. It was a trophy verdict for the district attorney’s office, a sign that law and order had triumphed in one of the city’s most heinous and high-profile crimes. But there is a problem. New evidence from the state’s key witness released in early January by the district attorney’s office — evidence that the office had for over two years — could put a hole right in the middle of the case against Mr. Anderson.

Richard Bourke of the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center, a nonprofit organization that represents Mr. Anderson and others facing the death penalty, routinely pushes for new trials in capital cases. But while these motions are standard practice, and sometimes take up a single page, this one is different, Mr. Bourke said.

Mr. Bourke cited crucial evidence that was never handed over to the defense during the trial, including a videotaped interview with prosecutors in which the state’s central witness contradicts her testimony on significant points.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/us/02orleans.html?ref=us

[pleah]

1. K&R

[rhett o rick]

2. I am going to guess that the Obama DOJ is going to squash this soon. nt