At 2 p.m. on August 14, 2015, two men tried to rob the Quick Pick convenience store on the south side of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. One of the men pointed a gun at the cashier, Salim Ahmed, and demanded cash. He then shot Ahmed in the arm and tried to open the cash register. A customer named Jerry Miller, who was armed, had been in the back of the store when the robbery occurred and made his way to the front. The second man, who was acting as a lookout, warned the first man, who shot Miller in the leg, striking his femoral artery.
Although seriously injured, Miller survived. He described the shooter to Milwaukee police as a teenage Black male with a caramel complexion, a small build, hazel eyes, and wearing a self-made T-shirt that covered his head. He described the second man as a teenage Black male with a dark complexion and 4-6” dreadlocks, with a slight build and also wearing a T-shirt head covering.
Miller said that when he was in the store, he heard the lookout refer to the shooter as “Self,” saying something like, “Self, there’s another guy in the store.”
Miller and a witness who was not in the store said that the men got into a gray Buick SUV that had a white dealer plate.
On September 9, 2015, Milwaukee police saw a Buick matching the vehicle description from the robbery. They stopped the car. Deyontae Stinson, who was 23 years old, was driving. His wife was in the passenger seat. Deyontae’s brother, 18-year-old Lavontae Stinson, was in the back. During a search of the vehicle, police found three .380-caliber bullets in the driver’s door. (Firearms analysts later concluded that they were the same caliber and brand used in the Quick Pick robbery.)
The Stinson brothers were arrested on outstanding warrants but eventually let go. At the police station, according to a report, Lavontae walked past his brother during Deyontae’s interview and said, “Hey, Self.” At the time of this arrest, Lavontae had shoulder-length dreadlocks with gold tips. He also did not have dark skin.
Police obtained a search warrant for Deyontae’s cell phone. They found a YouTube video filmed a week before the robbery that showed Stinson rapping and pulling out a .380-caliber Cobra pistol. The camera then panned to Lavontae, who said, “In a week or two, we’re going to be rich, man.” Deyontae’s phone also contained news searches on the robbery made in the 24 hours after the incident.
Separately, detectives learned that the police had gone to Lavontae’s house on August 8, after a report of shots being fired. Another resident said that Lavontae had fired a gun into the air. The police had recovered two .380 casings. A firearms examiner later testified that the casings “matched” the casings found at the Quick Pick.
Police arrested Deyontae Stinson on December 19, 2015, charging him with attempted armed robbery, two counts of first-degree reckless injury, and two weapons violations.
Lavontae was arrested on February 2, 2016. In his statement to police, Lavontae said he was innocent. He said that at the time of the robbery, he was at a barbecue hosted in memory of an aunt who had died several years earlier. He said that Deyontae had committed the robbery with a friend he knew only as “Don,” whom he described as dark-skinned, with 6-inch dreadlocks. Don’s real name was Darius Stevenson.
A jury convicted Deyontae Stinson of all charges on June 23, 2016. He later received a sentence of 53 years in prison.
Lavontae’s trial in Milwaukee County Circuit Court began in early October 2017. Alison Ritter had initially represented Lavontae, but she had withdrawn from the case after a conflict with Stinson’s family. She was replaced by Thomas Harris.
At trial, Miller testified that the lookout person had long dreadlocks in a ponytail, with blond tips. The store’s surveillance video appeared to indicate that the shirts covered the men’s heads completely, and Miller had not previously described the lookout’s hair this way. Harris did not impeach him on this inconsistency.
Dean Newport, the lead detective, testified that Miller had described the lookout as having that style of hair and said this information was in the criminal complaint. But it wasn’t, and Harris impeached Newport on this testimony.
Newport also testified that he could tell from the surveillance video that the bulge under the lookout’s head covering was consistent with a ponytail. He also said that he knew from experience that the Stinson brothers were talking about the Quick Pick robbery in the YouTube video.
Deyontae Stinson testified on his brother’s behalf. At the time, his appeal was pending. He said that neither he nor Lavontae committed the crime. He also said that the gun in the video was fake. The state presented expert testimony from a firearms examiner that refuted Deyontae’s claim. Lavontae would later say in a court filing that his brother’s testimony was “damaging” to his defense.
Lavontae Stinson testified and said he was at the family barbecue, but his testimony was called into question because the anniversary of his aunt’s death didn’t match up with the day of the barbecue.
The police had stopped Lavontae Stinson in the Buick for a traffic violation a few days after the robbery. At trial, he testified that he was dropping off his son at daycare, but that explanation didn’t line up with the 7:30 p.m. timestamp on the ticket.
Harris did not call any of Lavontae’s alibi witnesses. Several times during the trial, although not in front of the jury, Harris said he had to leave early for a wedding on Friday, October 6, and wouldn’t be back until Tuesday. He left that Friday afternoon after the jury began deliberations and was not present in the courtroom when it returned an hour later with guilty verdicts on the charges of attempted armed robbery and first-degree reckless injury.
Available court records don’t indicate the sentence Lavontae Stinson received.
After his conviction, Lavontae Stinson moved for a new trial. He said Harris had provided ineffective representation by: failing to investigate and present testimony from witnesses who could support his alibi; failing to interview Deyontae Stinson before he testified at his brother’s trial; and failing to present evidence of Stevenson’s involvement in the robbery. The alibi witnesses, the motion said, included Lavontae’s sisters and Deyontae’s mother, who said Deyontae and Stevenson stopped by the barbecue just after 2 p.m. and were upset. The mother said Deyontae confessed his involvement to her.
Separately, Lavontae also presented new evidence of his innocence. This included a 2018 statement from Deyontae that said he robbed the Quick Pick with Stevenson, and that his brother was not there. (Deyontae said that Stevenson made him take part in the robbery to repay a debt.)
Stinson’s motion also included a Facebook exchange between Stevenson and Shameka Bounds, Lavontae’s girlfriend, where Stevenson appeared to admit that he served as Deyontae’s lookout, but claimed he only went into the store to “save [Deyontae] from getting killed.”
In its response filed March 23, 2022, the state agreed to vacate Stinson’s conviction based on ineffective assistance of counsel. It said Harris had made several serious errors prior to and during the trial. Harris told the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office that neither he nor his investigator spoke with any of the potential alibi witnesses and that he didn’t try to develop any evidence to implicate Stevenson in the crime. The response also said that Harris erred in calling Deyontae Stinson as a witness without knowing the substance of his testimony, which was “harmful” to Lavontae’s defense.
A judge granted the motion to vacate Stinson’s convictions on March 25, 2022. Prior to the ruling, Lavontae had been released from prison on February 28, 2022. The state dismissed the charges on January 5, 2023.
Stinson filed a claim for state compensation on October 16, 2023, seeking $300,000 plus attorney’s fees. His claim said: “Lavontae’s conviction was overturned on the back of clear and convincing evidence that he was not involved in the robbery and, instead, the police had gotten the wrong guy. He was originally convicted because of his trial lawyer’s miserable failure as his advocate, omitting from trial the evidence that ultimately resulted in his exoneration.”
The district attorney’s office said that it would defer to the judgment of the State of Wisconsin Claims Board over whether to approve compensation. But its letter to the board said, “In its re-review of this matter, my office determined not to retry Mr. Stinson in this case because it could not meet its burden of proof, and in fairness to Mr. Stinson now, the additional information received from post-conviction counsel actually casts doubt on whether Mr. Stinson was involved at all in this offense.”
The board denied Lavontae’s claim on July 23, 2024, discounting the credibility of Deyontae’s statement and Stevenson’s Facebook messages. “Here, Stinson must prove his innocence by clear and convincing evidence, whereas to obtain a vacation based on ineffective assistance of counsel he only had to show there was a reasonable probability that the result would have been different if he had had more effective counsel. These are two very distinct standards with different burdens of proof and they cannot be conflated.”
– Julissa Bojorquez, Shannon Lynch, Diana Nakhmanson, Joselin Sanchez, and Guillermo Zepeda
Posting Date: 07-07-2025
Last Update Date: 07-07-2025
