In December 1996, 22-year-old Martin Hubbard, a passenger in a car, was shot and killed in New Orleans, Louisiana.
The driver of the car, Hubbard's cousin, identified himself as Kevin Watson. He said that 23-year-old Dwight LaBran was the shooter. He told the police that he and Hubbard had given LaBran a ride and as they were driving, LeBran shot Hubbard.
Watson also claimed that after he bolted from the car, LaBran shot at him and the bullet had grazed his head.
On January 7, 1997, LaBran was arrested. He was charged with first-degree murder.
LeBran went to trial in Orleans Parish District Court on July 7, 1997. The trial lasted one day. He was convicted based solely on Watson’s testimony and was sentenced to life in prison.
On May 26, 1999, the Supreme Court of Louisiana affirmed Labran’s conviction.
In 2001, LaBran, acting without a lawyer, filed a petition for post-conviction relief. He asserted that Watson was actually Kevin Ellis, and that Ellis had lied not only about his identity, but had falsely claimed he did not have a criminal record.
As a result, Emily Bolton, an attorney for the newly founded Innocence Project New Orleans, was appointed as his lawyer and subsequently filed an amended petition for a new trial.
In the petition, Bolton presented evidence that on May 7, 1997, Watson had been shot in the head in New Orleans and that he was named in the police report as Kevin Ellis. Additionally, the petition said the shooting report had been screened by the District Attorney’s office on July 1, 1997, just six days before Labran’s trial began.
The petition said the prosecution knew that Watson was really Kevin Ellis, and that Ellis’s record showed arrests for crack and powder cocaine possession in 1991. At trial, testifying under the name of Watson, he said that he had never been arrested, which the petition said was false. “Kevin Ellis was consistently being cut loose from charges by the state, and the police were not arresting him for his pending charges, despite contact with him,” the petition said. “The fact that the police turned a blind eye to the illegal acts that this key witness was committing was evidence that could have been used strongly in impeachment.”
The petition also asserted that LaBran had alibi testimony that his defense attorney never presented. Ernette Bullette said that she had been with LaBran from the afternoon of the shooting until well after the shooting occurred. She said that she was in the hallway outside the trial courtroom, but was never called to testify.
On December 20, 2001, LeBran’s conviction was vacated, the charges were dismissed, and he was released.
– Maurice Possley
Posting Date: 08-29-2011
Last Update Date: 08-07-2019
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