Former Prosecutors Say Intellectually Disabled Louisiana Man Entitled to New Trial After Exculpatory Evidence Withheld

Forty-four for­mer state and fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors and Department of Justice offi­cials — includ­ing for­mer U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey — have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to grant a new tri­al to Corey Williams (pic­tured), say­ing that Caddo Parish, Louisiana pros­e­cu­tors vio­lat­ed their duty to ensure that ​“jus­tice shall be done” by with­hold­ing excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence in a mur­der case that sent an intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled teenag­er to death row.

Williams’s peti­tion alleges that police and pros­e­cu­tors knew that Williams had been framed by the actu­al killers, that police coerced him to false­ly con­fess, and that the pros­e­cu­tion delib­er­ate­ly with­held wit­ness state­ments giv­en to police that could have helped Williams prove he had been framed.

No phys­i­cal evi­dence linked Williams to the 1998 rob­bery and mur­der of Jarvis Griffin, who was deliv­er­ing a piz­za to a Shreveport home. Several wit­ness­es said they saw Gabriel Logan, Nathan Logan, and Chris Moore (nick­named ​“Rapist”) steal mon­ey and piz­za from Griffin, while the six­teen-year-old Williams was sim­ply stand­ing out­side at the time. The victim’s blood was found on Gabriel Logan’s sweat­shirt; Nathan Logan’s fin­ger­prints were found on the emp­ty clip of the mur­der weapon; and Moore was in pos­ses­sion of some of the pro­ceeds of the rob­bery. Only Moore claimed to have seen Williams com­mit the killing. 

Williams, who had intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty caused by severe lead poi­son­ing from reg­u­lar­ly eat­ing dirt and paint chips as a young child and who as a teenag­er still repeat­ed­ly uri­nat­ed him­self, ini­tial­ly told police he had noth­ing to do with the killing. But after six hours of police inter­ro­ga­tion, Williams con­fessed to the mur­der. After detec­tives pre­sent­ed the old­er men with Williams’s con­fes­sion, their sto­ries changed to corroborate it. 

At tri­al, Caddo Parish pros­e­cu­tor Hugo Holland pre­sent­ed the con­fes­sion and Moore’s tes­ti­mo­ny as evi­dence of WIlliams’s guilt. Then, hav­ing with­held from the defense police state­ments that impli­cat­ed his wit­ness­es in fram­ing Williams, Holland ridiculed the defense claim that Williams had been framed, call­ing it ​“the biggest set of cir­cum­stances con­cern­ing a con­spir­a­cy since John Kennedy was killed in 1963.” 

The pros­e­cu­tors’ ami­cus brief in sup­port of Williams states that “[t]he prosecutor’s goal is not only to strive for a fair tri­al, but also to pro­tect pub­lic safe­ty by ensur­ing that inno­cent per­sons are not con­vict­ed while the guilty remain free.” It stress­es that this is a case in which, “[h]ad the state­ments not been with­held, there is a rea­son­able prob­a­bil­i­ty that the ver­dict would have been different.” 

Ben Cohen, Williams’s long­time lawyer, said that “[w]hat the pros­e­cu­tor and the police did is out­ra­geous. They knew Williams was inno­cent and they just went for­ward any­way.… They don’t think his life matters.” 

Eleven men have been exon­er­at­ed from Louisiana’s death row since the 1970s, includ­ing the Caddo Parish exon­er­a­tions of Glen Ford and Rodricus Crawford. All eleven cas­es involved police and/​or pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct.

Holland him­self has been impli­cat­ed in with­hold­ing wit­ness state­ments in anoth­er cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion show­ing the defen­dant had not par­tic­i­pat­ed in the killing. Holland was forced to resign his posi­tion as an assis­tant dis­trict attor­ney for Caddo Parish in 2012 after he and anoth­er pros­e­cu­tor were caught fal­si­fy­ing fed­er­al forms in an attempt to obtain a cache of M‑16 rifles for them­selves through a Pentagon pro­gram that offers sur­plus mil­i­tary gear to police departments. 

Williams was released from death row after the U.S. Supreme Court decid­ed Atkins v. Virginia, bar­ring the death penal­ty for per­sons with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, and is cur­rent­ly serv­ing a life sentence.