31 January 2024 :
January 27, 2024 - In rare move, Louisiana Supreme Court tosses death sentence in quadruple murder----Darrell Robinson said prosecutors failed to turn over evidence supporting his innocence claim
Darrell Robinson always claimed innocence in the 1996 quadruple murder that landed him a death sentence.
The Louisiana Supreme Court granted him a new trial in a divided decision throwing out his conviction and death sentence, marking a rare instance of the state's highest court overturning a conviction based on a prosecutor's failure to turn over evidence to the defense.
Capital defense attorneys say the court had never previously reversed a lower court to grant relief to a death row inmate for violating Brady v. Maryland, the 1963 U.S. Supreme Court edict requiring the state to share all pertinent evidence before trial. In several Louisiana cases, federal courts have ordered new trials for long-serving prisoners over withheld evidence, after denials in state courts. Other tossed convictions never reached the Louisiana Supreme Court.
But in Robinson’s case, a court majority agreed that Rapides Parish prosecutors had railroaded him enough to shred confidence in the guilty verdicts. Chief Justice John Weimer, in the majority opinion, ticked off several areas in which prosecutors failed to disclose exculpatory evidence.
“Considered separately, each item undermines the strength of the state's case; considered cumulatively they convince us that we can have no confidence that the jury's verdict would not have been affected had the suppressed evidence come to light,” he wrote.
A unanimous jury from St. Landry Parish convicted Robinson in 2001 of four counts of first-degree murder and, days later, sentenced him to death for the execution-style slayings of Billy Lambert, 50; Lambert's sister, Carol Hooper, 54; her daughter, Maureen Kelley, 37; and Kelley's infant son, Nicholas.
Prosecutors allegedly struck a deal with a jailhouse informant who provided key testimony against Robinson.
The informant, Leroy Goodspeed, scored breaks on criminal conduct as he waited to testify against Robinson. He also got a sweetheart deal in a different parish afterward, according to the Supreme Court's opinion.
Goodspeed had 2 of his Rapides Parish convictions pardoned in a state inmate tracking system before his testimony, "although as a habitual offender he was not eligible for pardons without first going before the Pardon Board,” Weimer wrote.
Nevertheless, a Rapides prosecutor vouched for his testimony with the jury, saying, “Goodspeed was not given anything. He was not offered anything. He did not ask for anything."
Prosecutor Michael Shannon later asserted that he'd decided to make a call for leniency for Goodspeed only after the trial. But on Friday, the Supreme Court found ample evidence of a quid pro quo.
Prosecutors also withheld serology bench notes and diagrams, including those related to Lambert’s blood-splattered jacket, which was hanging nearby. DNA testing found the blood was neither Robinson’s nor any of the victims’.
There were also ballistics notes that didn’t show up in the defense file, the court concluded.
The court found that Judge Patricia Koch of the 9th Judicial District used too high a standard in denying that the withheld evidence was “material,” warranting a new trial for Robinson.
