Acknowledging that a man his office sent to prison for life likely was innocent, Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro has dropped the case against Michael Shannon, whose conviction in a fatal shooting outside a Gentilly gas station was overturned last year.
Cannizzaroโs office dismissed the case against Shannon, 54, on Wednesday. Criminal District Court Judge Byron C. Williams immediately ordered Shannon to be relieved from the conditions of his bail.
The decision from Cannizzaroโs office ends a long legal saga for Shannon, who was convicted almost entirely on the word of one eyewitness in what his attorneys said was a flawed trial.
At a series of hearings last year, Shannonโs lawyers called other witnesses who pointed to a different man as the killer of Ralph Cole Jr.
Cannizzaro said he now believes that Shannon โย who was convicted two years into the district attorneyโs first term โย was โin all likelihoodโ innocent.
"In the interest of justice, we felt this was the appropriate resolution to this case. In light of the new testimony from four witnesses presented at the hearing for post-conviction relief, it appears in all likelihood that this individual was not the person responsible for this homicide,โ Cannizzaro said in a statement.
Shannon has been free on $75,000 bail since July, when Williams tossed out his conviction. His lawyers said he was ecstatic to hear the latest news.
โHe was very happy to finally be free of this. Itโs been going on for almost 13 years, and many of those years, he spent in jail,โ said Paul Casteleiro, legal director for the nonprofit law firm Centurion.
Robert Jones stood outside an Orleans Parish criminal courtroom one day last month in a dark suit and an ID badge as he huddled with the famil…
Robert Jones, the man who fought successfully to free himself from the ถถา๕h State Penitentiary at Angola, alleging prosecutorial miscondu…
Shannon was first arrested a year after Cole was gunned down outside a gas station in 2004. His trial was long delayed by the chaos of the cityโs post-Hurricane Katrina justice system and by prosecutorsโ decision to repeatedly bring and dismiss indictments against him. At one point, he was released on bail for two years.
Shannon finally went on trial in 2011. A single eyewitness said she watched him shoot Cole from a nearby car.
Shannonโs appeals attorneys said that his trial lawyer, Paul Fleming, failed to interview a half-dozen other witnesses who were not called at the trial. They described the shooter as at least 6 feet tall, although Shannon stood only 5 feet 6 inches.
The appeals lawyers also took aim at the prosecutionโs theory of Shannonโs motive. The state claimed that Shannon was retaliating for a beating of a cousin in Baton Rouge, but Shannonโs lawyers said the men were unrelated.
Williams sided with Shannonโs lawyers, finding that Fleming had failed to effectively challenge the stateโs case.
Nevertheless, Cannizzaroโs office continued to appeal the judgeโs ruling to the state 4th Circuit Court of Appeal and the state Supreme Court. The higher court last month shot down their request to hear the case.
Only after the Supreme Courtโs decision did prosecutors drop the case.
Cannizzaroโs concession of Shannonโs likely innocence appears to be the most full-throated admission ever by the district attorney that his office got it wrong in a murder case.
In 2014, Cannizzaro said that prosecutors under former District Attorney Harry Connick Sr. intentionally withheld a key police report that could have prevented Reginald Adams from spending 34 years behind bars.
Cannizzaro called the actions of police and prosecutors โshamefulโ and apologized to Adams. Yet he did not go so far as to say that Adams was likely innocent.
In another case with parallels to Shannonโs, prosecutors abandoned the 2009 murder conviction of Kia Stewart in the face of six witnesses who contradicted the stateโs sole eyewitness at his trial. Yet Cannizzaroโs office, again, did not state that Stewart might be innocent.
Declaring the former ถถา๕h Penitentiary at Angola lifer innocent, a judge has ordered the state to pay $180,000 to a New Orleans man who s…
The district attorneyโs newly announced position in this case could strengthen Shannonโs hand if he seeks money from Louisianโs Innocence Compensation Fund.
Freed inmates can apply for $25,000 for each year they spent behind bars, up to a $250,000 cap. They also can put in for as much as $80,000 for job training, medical costs and โthe loss of life opportunities.โ
However, under state law, the former inmates must first prove they were โfactually innocentโ of the crime that sent them to prison.
One of Shannonโs attorneys, Tulane University law school professor Herbert Larson, said he believes Shannon is eligible for the compensation.
Williams, the judge, would have to approve Shannonโs application, if he makes one.
Cole, the homicide victim, was a jeweler and a self-employed newspaper dealer for The Times-Picayune. Attempts to contact his wife and son were unsuccessful.
Kyle Duncan, President Trump's nominee to the United State Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, is unfit for the role.ย