The state of North Carolina dropped all charges against Levon Jones, and he was freed today (May 2) after spend­ing 13 years on death row. U.S. District Court Judge Terrence Boyle over­turned Jones’s con­vic­tion two years ago, but he was held in prison await­ing a pos­si­ble retri­al until pros­e­cu­tors announced that they were dis­miss­ing all charges. Judge Boyle crit­i­cized Jones’s defense attor­neys for ​“con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly defi­cient” per­for­mance, not­ing their fail­ure to research the his­to­ry and cred­i­bil­i­ty of Lovely Lorden, the pros­e­cu­tion’s star wit­ness. The judge not­ed, ​“Given the weak­ness of the pros­e­cu­tion’s case and its heavy reliance on the tes­ti­mo­ny of Lovely Lorden, there is a rea­son­able prob­a­bil­i­ty that, but for coun­sel’s unpro­fes­sion­al errors, the result of the pro­ceed­ing would have been different.”

In April, Jones’s new defense team filed an affi­davit in which Lorden said, ​“Much of what I tes­ti­fied to was sim­ply not true.” She also stat­ed that a detec­tive coached her on what to say. Additionally, she col­lect­ed $4,000 from the gov­er­nor’s office for offer­ing the clues that led to the arrest of Jones.

Jones’s retri­al was set to begin May 12th, 2008. Duplin County District Attorney Dewey Hudson decid­ed to ask the judge in the case to drop all charges. Jones was orig­i­nal­ly con­vict­ed of rob­bing and shoot­ing a boot­leg­ger named Leamon Grady.
(Mandy Locke, ​“Death Row Inmate to go Free.” The News and Observer, May 2, 2008). Levon Jones is the 129th inmate to be exon­er­at­ed and freed from death row since 1973. He is the 8th such inmate freed from North Carolina, and the 6th per­son in the coun­try exon­er­at­ed in the past 12 months. See Innocence.

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