Lawyer: Prosecutors withheld evidence of teen’s innocence
Legal team looks to overturn conviction for 1998 murder.
BATON ROUGE, LA. — A legal team has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its claim that Louisiana prosecutors withheld evidence for a murder trial that ended in a guilty verdict against an intellectually disabled teenager accused of killing a pizza deliveryman.
Corey Williams was 16 years old when police arrested him in the shooting death of Jarvis Griffin two decades ago in Caddo Parish, where prosecutors have been widely criticized for their aggressive approach to seeking the death penalty.
Earlier this week, a group of 44 former prosecutors and Justice Department officials filed a brief in support of a petition by Williams’ lawyers asking the court to review and reverse his murder conviction.
Before the shooting, Williams was hospitalized for extreme lead poisoning, still sucked his thumb and frequently urinated on himself, according to his lawyers. A district court judge overturned Williams’ death sentence in 2004 on the basis of his disabilities, one of his attorneys said.
Lawyers for Williams say there wasn’t any physical evidence linking him to the January 1998 death of Griffin, who was killed and robbed while delivering a pizza to a Shreveport home.
The petition claims “staggering” evidence of Williams’ innocence was suppressed by prosecutors before his trial.
Caddo Parish prosecutors have denied violating their duty to disclose evidence favorable to Williams. Witnesses saw several older men steal money and pizza from Griffin and saw Williams running from the house alone with nothing in his hands after the shooting, according to his lawyers. One of the older men, Chris Moore, was the only witness who identified Williams as the shooter.
Fingerprints found on the murder weapon belonged to one of the other older men, and the victim’s blood was found on clothing worn by a third older man, according to Williams’ lawyers.
Police officers found Williams hiding under a sheet on a couch at his grandmother’s house. He initially denied killing Griffin but changed his story after police questioned him through the night.
“His confession was brief, devoid of corroborating details,” his lawyers wrote in their March 2 petition to the Supreme Court. “Having just assumed responsibility for a homicide, Corey told the officers, ‘I’m tired. I’m ready to go home and lay down.’ ”
Only after Williams’ trial did his attorneys obtain recordings of witness interviews pointing to his innocence. The withheld recordings showed police had suspected the older men were plotting to frame Williams for the killing, according to Williams’ lawyers.