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Thread: Michael Wearry (Weary) - Louisiana

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    Michael Wearry (Weary) - Louisiana




    Summary of Offense:

    On or about April 4, 1998, Wearry robbed, beat and ran over a pizza delivery boy, 16-year-old Eric Walber, in Albany. Walber's mom could only identify him by his sneakers. The case sat cold until a convict named Sam Scott requested a meeting with Livingston Parish authorities in April 2000.

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    No. 06-6799 *** CAPITAL CASE ***
    Title:
    Michael Weary, Petitioner
    v.
    Louisiana
    Docketed: September 27, 2006
    Lower Ct: Supreme Court of Louisiana
    Case Nos.: (03-KA-3067)
    Decision Date: April 24, 2006
    Rehearing Denied: June 23, 2006

    ~~~Date~~~ ~~~~~~~Proceedings and Orders~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Sep 20 2006 Petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis filed. (Response due October 27, 2006)
    Oct 27 2006 Brief of respondent Louisiana in opposition filed.
    Nov 8 2006 DISTRIBUTED for Conference of November 21, 2006.
    Nov 14 2006 Reply of petitioner Michael Weary filed. (Distributed)
    Nov 27 2006 Petition DENIED.

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.a...es/06-6799.htm

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    High court reverses conviction of Louisiana death row inmate

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday reversed the 2002 murder conviction of a Louisiana death row inmate after ruling that prosecutors failed to disclose evidence that could have helped his defense.

    The ruling came in the case of Michael Wearry, who was convicted in the 1998 death of a 16-year-old pizza delivery driver near Baton Rouge.

    The justices said in an unsigned opinion that prosecutors should have turned over evidence casting doubt on the credibility of a prison informant and another witness who testified against Wearry. The court also said the state failed to disclose medical records raising questions about a witness' description of the crime.

    Lower courts had rejected Wearry's post-conviction appeals.

    Wearry was implicated in the case nearly two years after the victim, Eric Walber, was found lying face down on the side of a gravel road in a rural area of Hammond, Louisiana. Officials said Walber was beaten to death. Wearry claimed that he was at a wedding reception 40 miles away at the time of the murder.

    The high court said the state's trial evidence "resembles a house of cards" built on the questionable testimony of a prison informant who other inmates said was seeking revenge against Wearry. It sent the case back for a new trial.

    "Beyond doubt, the newly revealed evidence suffices to undermine confidence in Wearry's conviction," the court said.

    Justices Samuel Alito filed a dissent joined by Justice Clarence Thomas. Alito said the jury might have convicted Wearry even with the additional evidence. He said the high court should have taken up the case on the merits to give the state "the opportunity to make its full case."

    http://news.yahoo.com/high-court-rev...155112057.html

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    Man who spent 14 years on death row claims prosecutor, detective elicited false testimony

    A man who was convicted of murder in 1998 has filed a lawsuit alleging that a prosecutor and investigator coerced a teen to give false testimony.

    Michael Wearry was convicted in 2002 in the murder of 16-year-old Eric Walber. Wearry's attorneys were preparing for a retrial when they were able to find the witness, Jeffrey Ashton, in May 2017.

    Jim Craig, representing Wearry with the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center, said Ashton talked to the criminal defense attorneys and told them what allegedly happened.

    "It's not every day that one accuses a prosecutor, a sitting district attorney, of fabricating witness testimony," Craig said. "It's a very serious case and a very disturbing case. I hope it's unusual. I don't think anybody wants to think this kind of behavior happens every day."

    Wearry's lawsuit was filed in federal court in Baton Rouge. District Attorney Scott Perriloux and former Livingston Parish detective Marlon Kearney Foster are named as defendants.

    "It's very disturbing to have a sitting district attorney who we believe has gone to a witness and pressured a witness to give an account of something that didn't happen," Craig said.

    Craig said the case is challenging, but he feels optimistic about the outcome.

    "We expect that Mr. Perriloux will challenge this very vigorously through his attorneys," Craig said. "I think his reputation is very much at stake. I think the integrity of this and other cases in that district is at stake and we expect this to be a very hard fought case. We are confident that what we have filed is correct and truthful."

    According to the innocentproject.org, the Supreme Court reversed Wearry's death row conviction with a 6-2 vote in 2016.

    The court didn't find physical evidence linking Wearry to the murder of Walber, who was found dead on the side of the road in rural Louisiana, according to the innocentproject.org.

    In 2016, Wearry told the court that he was at a wedding reception when the murder took place.

    When Wearry was convicted in 2002, Perrilloux was quoted in The Livingston Parish News, saying "Some cases cry out for the death penalty. This one screams for the death penalty. It hollers and yells."

    According to The Livingston Parish News report in 2002, Ashton testified to seeing Wearry throw "something shiny" in the ditch near Ashton's home on the night of the murder.

    Ashton also testified to seeing Walber's red Ford Escort driving down the street.

    According to The Livingston Parish News, Ashton went out the next morning to find whatever Weary had thrown, which turned out to be a Tommy Hilfiger cologne bottle that Cherie Walber said she had given him for Christmas.

    Walber was making his pizza delivery when he was murdered, according to court documents.

    Sam Scott, who was incarcerated at the time, contacted authorities and implicated Wearry, according to court documents.

    "Scott initially reported that he had been friends with the victim; that he was at work the night of the murder; that the victim had come looking for him but had instead run into Wearry and 4 others; and that Wearry and the others had later confessed to shooting and driving over the victim before leaving his body on Blahut Road," the opinion stated.

    The facts, however, show the victim had not been shot and his body had been found on Crisp Road.

    (source: louisianarecord.com)
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    - Rev. Richard Hawke

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    Man once on death row in pizza delivery boy's killing closer to release after guilty plea

    BY CAROLINE GRUESKIN
    The Advocate

    LIVINGSTON — A former death row inmate who maintained he was innocent in the 1998 killing of a pizza-delivery boy outside Albany pleaded guilty to manslaughter on Wednesday and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

    With credit for time already spent behind bars, Michael Wearry has served most of his prison term.

    He had been sentenced to death at his first trial, but the U.S. Supreme Court set his conviction aside in 2016, ruling prosecutors failed to disclose information that could have aided his defense.

    In accordance with a plea agreement reached among prosecutors and defense attorneys, 21st Judicial Judge Robert Morrison sentenced Wearry to 25 years for the death of Eric Walber, a 16-year-old Albany High School honor student and football player. Wearry was among six people initially convicted of killing Walber, who was robbed, beaten and run over with his own car after he had finished his pizza delivery shift April 4, 1998.

    The case shook a rural community and went unsolved for two years before a man in prison came forward to police, claiming he had information about the crime.

    Wearry's retrial on a first-degree murder charge had been set to begin Jan. 22. Livingston Parish District Attorney Scott Perrilloux said Wednesday the decision to seek a plea agreement instead of going forward with a retrial came after a “real, honest evaluation of the evidence in the case.”

    “Do I feel vindicated? I don’t know, to be honest with you,” Perrilloux said during a news conference after the hearing. “It was a professional decision. My personal opinion is that he rots in hell.”

    He noted that no physical evidence ever tied Wearry or his five co-defendants to the crime scene. Some of the state’s witnesses are currently in custody, creating credibility issues at trial, he said.

    “When you put the devil on trial, you have to go to hell to get your witnesses,” Perrilloux said.

    The state’s key witness at the first trial, Sam Scott, was arrested on drug charges less than two weeks ago.

    The plea Wednesday provided some comfort for the victim’s mother, Cherie Walber-Hoyt, who said she fought for 20 years to hear someone admit to killing her son.

    The other co-defendants in the case were either found guilty at trial or entered “no contest” pleas, according to the district attorney’s office.

    “My biggest thing is he had to admit he killed Eric, because he did kill Eric. And all the smoke and screens that the lawyers do, it’s just smoke and screens,” Walber-Hoyt told The Advocate after the court hearing.

    During the hearing Wednesday morning, Perrilloux read out a factual basis for the plea. He said Wearry and co-defendant Randy Hutchinson flagged Walber down as he was making pizza deliveries, pulled him from the car and shoved him in the hatchback. With several others, Wearry beat Walber and assisted in running the victim over with his own car, Perrilloux said.

    Morrison asked Wearry if Perrilloux’s statement was true.

    “Yes, sir,” Wearry said. He did not elaborate.

    Wearry’s attorney, Rachel Conner, declined to comment after the hearing.

    The Walber murder case has been the subject of intense scrutiny over the past several years.

    While on death row, Wearry appealed his case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In ruling to throw out Wearry’s conviction, the justices compare the Perrilloux’s case to a “house of cards built on the jury crediting Scott’s account rather than Wearry’s alibi.”

    Wearry long claimed that he was at a wedding reception in Baton Rouge when Walber was killed. Scott, the jailhouse informant who broke the case open for law enforcement by implicating himself in the crime, said he spoke in order to clear his conscience.

    But over the course of five statements he gave to law enforcement, his version of events changed dramatically. For instance, he initially said Walber was shot, which he was not.

    The high court pointed to three specific pieces of evidence that were withheld.

    • Medical records indicated Randall Hutchinson, who is accused of beating and dragging Walber, was recovering from an operation on his knee that had been performed just nine days earlier.

    • Witness Eric Charles Brown had asked prosecutors for a deal on his drug sentence.

    • Scott had told another inmate he wanted to "make sure (Wearry) gets the needle ‘cause he jacked over me."

    A nonprofit civil rights law firm has also accused the district attorney and a sheriff's deputy of coercing a 10-year-old into giving false testimony in Wearry's murder trial. Perrilloux has maintained there was nothing improper.

    Meanwhile, defense attorneys identified alternative suspects to the crime, and a flake of skin found on Walber’s car that was being tested for DNA evidence did not match any of the convicted men, according to defense attorneys.

    The Supreme Court’s decision led two of Wearry’s co-defendants, Darrell Hampton and James Skinner, to appeal their life sentences for murder.

    Perrilloux said the guilty plea Wednesday should aid his case against Hampton and Skinner.

    “Having Mr. Wearry stand up in court today and admit to his participation and also admit to the other individuals being someone who is there, Wearry (is) now implicating the other individuals who have already been convicted,” Perrilloux said.

    But Jee Park, Skinner’s lawyer and the executive director of Innocence Project New Orleans, said Wednesday’s proceedings showed the opposite.

    “By dismissing the murder indictment so Mr. Wearry can be freed and at home by this summer, the State is essentially admitting that the trials against Mr. Wearry and his co-defendants were unfair,” Park wrote in a statement. “A fair-minded DA would revisit the convictions of Mr. Wearry’s co-defendants — and not arbitrarily single out Mr. Wearry -- and offer them the same bargain.”

    And a lawyer for Hampton, Marquest Meeks, said he expected his client to benefit.

    "It is great news that Mr. Wearry will be home with his family sometime next year. Mr. Hampton maintains his innocence and is confident that fairness requires that he be permitted to return home to his family ...," Meeks wrote in an email.

    Despite Park and Meeks' expectation that Wearry could be released in the coming months, it isn’t clear when Wearry might complete his sentence.

    Perrilloux said his conversations with corrections department officials has led him to believe Wearry will serve out most of the rest of his sentence.

    Wearry was credited good time dating back to March 5, 1999, when he was revoked from probation for a robbery charge, Perrilloux said.

    https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_ro...459eb9ebe.html

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