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JUSTICE FOR GLEN SEALS
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From The Times Picayune Oct 3 / 2000:
Death row inmate to
get new trial - Conviction tossed in taxicab killing
By Joe Darby West Bank bureau/The Times-Picayune
A state judge has ordered a new trial for a New Orleans man awaiting
execution at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola for the 1991 murder
of a Metry Cab driver.
Judge Patrick McCabe of the 24th Judicial District Court threw
out the 1993 conviction of Glen Seals because a sanity hearing, requested
by Seals' attorneybefore his trial, was never held. McCabe said all proceedings
against Seals, 37, should have stopped until the hearing was conducted.
Prosecutor Terry Boudreaux, who handles appeals for the Jefferson
Parish district attorney's office, asked the state Supreme Court on Monday
to overrule McCabe's findings. It could be some time before the high court
rules, Boudreaux said.
Seals was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of
Ray Feeney, 58, who was robbed, shot with his own gun and dumped out of his
taxicab on Earhart Expressway near Clearview Parkway on Aug. 15, 1991.
The state Supreme Court upheld Seals' conviction and death sentence
in 1996, finding no errors in the trial. But Nick Trenticosta of the Center
for Equal Justice, which represents people on death row, discovered in his
research of Seals' case that the sanity hearing was never held.
Judge Clarence McManus, who presided over Seals' 1993 trial in
the 24th Judicial District Court, had granted the defense request for a
sanity hearing, but the hearing never took place.
Attorney Martin Regan, whose firm represented Seals at the trial,
told McCabe in a hearing last month that he assumed all defense motions had
been fulfilled before the trial began.
Seals' is the first death penalty conviction in Jefferson
Parish to be overturned in several years.
Boudreaux said he is arguing to the Louisiana Supreme Court that
a retroactive sanity hearing could determine if Seals was competent to stand
trial in 1993.
The state high court has ruled that such hearings may be held
in some cases, particularly if psychiatric evaluations of the defendant were
conducted before trial, which could be used to help provide information on
the defendant's mental state at the time. But McCabe found that no
evaluation of Seals was conducted after his arrest.
"The information available to the doctors for a retroactive sanity
(hearing) is extremely small, extremely slight," McCabe said.
If the state high court upholds McCabe's decision, it would be
up to the attorneys representing Seals in a new trial to ask for a new sanity
hearing to determine if he is competent to stand trial, Trenticosta said.
If he were found competent, the state would have to try him again. If not,
a judge would likely order him held to see if medications and other psychiatric
treatment could render him competent.
10/03/00
THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE SUPPORTERS OF
GLEN SEALS
For more information, contact: glenseals@yahoo.com
| Click HERE to see Glen's Photo
Album Includes pictures of Glen in prison, Glen visiting with family, and also includes the DA's mini electric chair trophy that he kept on his desk...with pictures attached of all the men (including Glen) that he sent to death row. Interestingly, all but one of these men have since been released from death row. |
Glen Seals, a black man, fell victim to shameful racism when the Sheriff's Department and District Attorney's Office if Jefferson Parish disregarded their obligation as representatives of society and assumed the role of zealots. Seals was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death on July 23, 1993, by a Jefferson Parish, Louisiana jury. Seals trial commenced on July 19, 1993. Over the course of a on day jury selection, the District Attorney exercised four (4) of its twelve preemptory challenges against black veniremen, ensuing the seating of an all white jury. The twelve white seated jurors were not challenged by the state, even though their responses on the death penalty were identical to those of the black jurors stricken.
The outcome of this trial hinged on whether the jury would believe Seals' account of the shooting or whether they would disbelieve Seals in favor of the State's testimony and argument purporting to contradict his account. Much of this factual dispute was centered around the physical evidence at the scene. And lest we forget, the crime at issue in this case was obviously racially sensitive. Seals, a young African American male is charged with killing a white cab driver. This is, therefore, a case in which the racial composition of the jury might respond to Seals' defense trial.
On the night of July 26, 1991, Glen Seals, after working late, was picked up by a Metry taxi cab in Metaire, Louisiana, driven by a white man, whom he knew from previous rides. Glen directed the cab driver to a location in a high crime neighborhood on a dimly lit street in New Orleans. Upon looking out the back window and seeing a figure running towards the car, the cab driver panicked, immediately pulled his gun, pointed it at Seals, and ordered him to leave the cab. Seals grabbed ahold of the drivers gun and the two scuffled. During this scuffle an unknown number of shots were fired, some of which hit the driver. After Seals managed to gain control of the vehicle, he tried to bring the driver to a hospital; however, before arriving there the driver opened the passenger door and either jumped or fell to the ground at the Clearview exit on the Earhart Expressway in Metaire.
Thereafter, out of fear prompted by racial remarks that had in the past been made by Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee, Seals fled the scene. Kevin Belile, a young white male, spotted the cab driver lying on the side of the Earhart Expressway. Rather than stop, Belile drove to a Shoney's Restaurant in search of a state trooper and then went to a pay phone at a Shell gas station and called 911 to report what he had seen. After identifying himself and his location and providing as much information as he had, Belile returned to the spot. The 911 call was placed at 10:54 pm, the 911 operator dispatched officers to the scene at 10:56 pm and the first officer arrived at 11:01 pm. (This information was not known to defense before or during the trial; it was said to have been destroyed.) Belile stated after speaking with the 911 operator, he immediately returned to the spot where he 'd seen the man lying. Whereas, he obtained various information before the dying man stopped talking.
Between 11:30 pm and midnight, Seals was stopped by Jefferson Parish Sergeant Edgar Merida on Causeway Boulevard. Seals was a passenger in a White Fleet taxi cab driven by Jayce Burbank. Both occupants were immediately ordered from the cab at gunpoint to the rear of the cab. Seals was then questioned concerning bloody clothes, along with a red baseball cap, that was in a bag on the passenger side of the taxi. Seals and Burbank were transported to the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office for further questioning.
Sgt. Edgar Merida stated that the reason he stopped the White Fleet taxi was because he saw Seals sitting in the passenger seat wearing a red baseball cap, and he had heard on a broadcast on his police radio about a black man wearing a red baseball cap involved in a shooting of a cabdriver on the Earhart Expressway. After several state witnesses testified that the red baseball cap was located in the bag along with the bloody clothes, Sgt. Merida changed his story, stating the reason he stopped the White Fleet cab was because a white taxi had been involved in an armed robbery at Studio II Lounge in Metaire. This too, Seals learned after the trial, turned out to be false testimony.
Indeed, Mr. Seals informed the police of these facts within hours of the tragic shooting. He sorrowfully and plaintively described for the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office how the cab driver pulled his own gun on Seals in a dangerous neighbourhood and ordered him to pay and exit the cab. Seals told the police that he was bewildered by the drivers actions since he had taken several rides with him previously. According to Seals account, all gunshots were discharged during a struggle.
The prosecutors persistently thwarted defense access to highly relevant and exculpatory materials in the state's possession. The defense sought to examine various items of evidentiary value. Seals' defense sought to examine a paper bag and it's contents found with the cab driver on the roadside. Seals' defense contended that this material was a potentially significant source of information about the shooting. Whether it contained gunshot residue, blood, bullet particles, etc, was highly relevant for confirming Seals' version of the scuffle over the cabdrivers gun that resulted in the homicide. Seal's defense also sought the 911 tape and the 911 dispatch logs, to see when Belile dialed 911 and when officers were dispatched to the scene, to see how long Belile was alone with the cab driver before police arrived. (These were only located after the trial.)
The State presented testimony from FBI firearms examiner John Lewoczko concerning his examination of two bullets, five shell casings, a gun (belonging to the victim) and the clothing worn by the victim and the defendant. He said he found no evidence of gunshot residue on the clothing and that he "would expect" to find such materials where shots were fired from a range of less than than three (3) to four (4) feet. Later on redirect examination, this agent asserted that in the hypothetical scenario of two (2) individuals struggling over a gun in a vehicle, with five (5) shots fired, he "would expect to find some pattern of gunshot residue on the victims garments." Given the absence of such residues in his examination, he concluded, "I'd have to say that it did not take place within a couple of feet."
However, after trial and Seals' initial appeal, in 1997, (three years after trial) Seals did an FBI records request under the Freedom of Information Act, seeking any and all information that was in possession of their office. In July of 1998, Seals obtained 22 pages of material from the FBI. Among this material were sketches of the clothing that was worn by the victim, which indicated that there were, in fact, "powder flakes and various holes scattered in the shirts worn by the victim." Had this valuable piece of evidence been turned over to the defense, not only would it have been used to impeach FBI Agent John Lewoczko, but it would have collaborated Seals' account of a struggle over the victims gun.
It is obvious that the racially motivated attitude of Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee in particular, and the Jefferson Parish Judicial System in general, had an impact on the investigation and prosecution of this incident. The exculpatory and mitigating evidence withheld from Seals' defense team and the false testimony offered by Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Sgt. Merida and FBI Agent Lewoczko were direct results of the attitudes perpetuated by the persons of authority within Jefferson Parish, including Sheriff Lee. Had Seals been a white male, or the taxi driver been a black male, the investigation of and prosecution of this case would have taken an entirely different direction.
INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE SUPPORTERS OF GLEN SEALS
For more information : glenseals@yahoo.com
Glen Seals
DOC# 263204 Death Row
Louisiana State Penitentiary
Angola, LA 70712
| Click HERE to see Glen's Photo
Album Includes pictures of Glen in prison, Glen visiting with family, and also includes the DA's mini electric chair trophy that he kept on his desk...with pictures attached of all the men (including Glen) that he sent to death row. Interestingly, all but one of these men have since been released from death row. |
|
JUSTICE FOR GLEN SEALS
Visit The Official Homepage Set up by Glen's Supporters |
