For decades, Mr. Ezidore has maintained his innocence and fought his conviction through post-conviction investigation and litigation. During that process, Innocence & Justice Louisiana uncovered hundreds of pages of documents that had been withheld from the defense at trial. Those records showed that the State concealed critical evidence about incentives, benefits, and extraordinary assistance provided to the juvenile witness in exchange for his testimony against Mr. Ezidore.

The juvenile witness has since repeatedly recanted his testimony and stated that he falsely implicated Mr. Ezidore to avoid punishment in his own cases.

On July 16, 2025, the Louisiana Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal overturned Mr. Ezidore’s conviction, finding that the State violated his constitutional rights by suppressing evidence favorable to the defense. The Court later unanimously denied the State’s request for rehearing.

Even after his conviction was vacated, Mr. Ezidore remained incarcerated while the Attorney General’s Office fought to keep him in prison while they continued reprosecuting him. That fight led to an additional seven-month legal battle just to get him a bail hearing.

n February, after a two-day bail hearing, the district court set Mr. Ezidore’s bail at $1 million. IJLA continued challenging that amount. On April 28, 2026, the Louisiana Supreme Court agreed and ordered that bail be capped at $100,000.

Mr. Ezidore was freed on bail on May 12, 2026, after spending more than 34 years in prison, and is now living with numerous chronic and degenerative medical conditions affecting his mobility, spinal cord, joints, vision, and overall health. He cannot walk unaided and relies on a rollator for assistance.

Those wanting to support Keith’s journey can do so by donating to his GoFundMe or purchasing items from his Amazon.

The post Keith Ezidore appeared first on Innocence & Justice Louisiana.

The post Cheri Hayden appeared first on Innocence & Justice Louisiana.

Innocence & Justice Louisiana’s investigation uncovered undisclosed police documents that both undermined the version of facts in Mr. Johnson’s confession and placed the other woman (who’d bragged about the crime) with Mr. Samson on the night of the crime. A search of that woman’s home had turned up the murder weapon days before it was placed in Ms. Johnson’s purse. Further, the man who’d put the gun in Ms. Johnson’s purse had been seen with the gun just before police pulled them over. Police testified that there were no useable prints found at the scene, but never revealed that three fingerprints had been found and that they did not match Ms. Johnson.

The Promise of Justice Initiative eventually brought Ms. Johnson’s case to the court and secured her release in February 2018, over 40.5 years after her conviction. Sadly, Ms. Johnson was only able to enjoy a short period of freedom, as she passed away in October 2019.

The post Bobbie Jean Johnson appeared first on Innocence & Justice Louisiana.

Mr. Laugand was tried twice. His first trial, in 1997, resulted in acquittal for co-defendant Draper Goff, who’d also been identified by the three witnesses. Mr. Laugand’s conviction was overturned after the Louisiana Supreme Court found that his appointed attorney was not prepared for trial. He was convicted, again, of second degree murder in 2001 and sentenced to life.

Innocence & Justice Louisiana’s investigation revealed that the state withheld evidence of Mr. Laugand’s innocence, including: the lead detective lying about the composition of the photographic lineups and the circumstances of the eyewitness statements, prosecutors eliciting false testimony, and the state concealing the evidence pointing to the actual perpetrators. Mr. Laugand’s conviction was overturned in 2023 based on the state’s failure to turn over evidence that points to his innocence. He was released on bail but still faces prosecution. Mr. Laugand, who has always maintained his innocence, spent over 27 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.

The post Raymond Laugand appeared first on Innocence & Justice Louisiana.

Innocence & Justice Louisiana began investigating his case in 2021, uncovering much evidence that was withheld or hidden by lead prosecutor James (Jim) Williams and the police. The newly discovered evidence included documentation of: the victims’ statements and a dying declaration that contradicted trial testimony, statements from the likely perpetrators that impeached their trial testimony, a fabricated statement from a witness used to link Mr. Davis to the murder weapon, and reports detailing how police came to rely on the lies told by the real perpetrators. The district court found that the state had failed to turn over favorable evidence before trial and knowingly used false testimony. Mr. Davis had his conviction overturned in July 2023 and he was released in August 2023. He was exonerated 40 years after his wrongful conviction, in March 2024.

The post Jerry Davis appeared first on Innocence & Justice Louisiana.

Innocence & Justice Louisiana’s investigation started in 2022, leading to new witness information that was never disclosed nor heard by the jury. This new information included evidence of the alleged eyewitness lying about other men that he considered romantic rivals and admitting that he set up Mr. Moses for breaking his arm and dating his ex-girlfriend. We also uncovered new testimonial evidence that supported what Mr. Moses always claimed: he wasn’t in New Orleans on the date of the crime. The court found that the state concealed exculpatory evidence at trial and Mr. Moses was granted post-conviction relief in May 2023. He was released on bond after over 29 years of wrongful incarceration and finally exonerated in July 2023.

The post Larry Moses appeared first on Innocence & Justice Louisiana.

During his arrest, Mr. Flanks had his brother’s gun, which the state initially claimed was the murder weapon. Det. Dillmann claimed that Mrs. Carnesi positively identified Mr. Flanks, even though the thing she remembered about the shooter was the white blotch on his cheek. She concluded, after Det. Dillmann told her “that’s him,” that the photo she picked did not show “the side of his face with that mark.”

James (Jim) Williams was the lead prosecutor, failing, as he did in other wrongful conviction cases, to turn over police reports and notes, grand jury testimony, and information about the other robberies to the defense. Only after the first trial did Mr. Flanks receive a ballistics report showing that the gun he possessed was definitely not the gun that killed the victim. By the second trial, Mrs. Carnesi’s recall of her own initial description had changed, as did Det. Dillmann’s testimony about the white blotch on the shooter’s face and the type of car used. Mr. Flanks was convicted of first-degree murder and the jury voted to sentence him to life, not death.

Innocence & Justice Louisiana’s investigation resulted in presenting new evidence, in May 2022, to the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office. A joint motion to vacate the conviction, based on the state’s failure to disclose exculpatory evidence at trial, was filed in November 2022. Mr. Flanks was exonerated and released that month, over 38 years after his wrongful conviction.

The post Raymond Flanks appeared first on Innocence & Justice Louisiana.

Mr. Walter was arrested in June 1986 for a simple burglary and police thought that he resembled the composite sketch. The victim then identified Mr. Walter from a photographic lineup. At trial, evidence of seminal fluid from a non-secretor (a person who does not have ABO-type antigens in other bodily fluids) was presented, but there was no evidence introduced of Mr. Walter’s blood type or whether he was a secretor; the victim was determined to be a non-secretor. The police laboratory later determined Mr. Walter’s blood type and confirmed that he was a secretor. At Mr. Walter’s hearing on his motion for a new trial, the police analyst testified that he could not say if the stain on the victim’s shorts was left by a non-secretor. The motion was denied and Mr. Walter’s December 1986 conviction for forcible rape, aggravated crime against nature, and aggravated burglary stood.

Innocence & Justice Louisiana started investigating the case in October 2021. The physical evidence had been destroyed. We were able to collect all of the relevant laboratory reports, one of which was never introduced at the motion for new trial hearing, and submit them for review by expert Alan Keel, who determined that enough seminal fluid was deposited that it was detected by the doctor during the sexual assault examination, a coroner’s analyst during examination of the rape kit samples (in which spermatozoa were visualized), and an NOPD analyst when examining stains on the victim’s shorts. The victim’s sexual history meant that the semen necessarily came from the perpetrator. No secretor activity was detected on any of the relevant samples, meaning that Mr. Walter could not have been the perpetrator. The case was presented to the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office, who joined a motion to vacate Mr. Walter’s conviction. He was exonerated on August 25, 2022, having served over 36 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.

The post Sullivan Walter appeared first on Innocence & Justice Louisiana.

Mr. Milton’s cousin was the only witness. His trial testimony was the sixth version of what he claimed to see that night. These divergent narratives differed greatly: when the cousin first noted the shooter, whether there was interaction between the shooter and victim, how far away the shooter was, what the shooter looked like, and how long the cousin viewed the shooter. The first four versions of the cousin’s narrative were never turned over to Mr. Dent or his attorney. They contained descriptions that obviously did not match Mr. Dent. Mr. Dent also never learned that police had spoken to an eyewitness who had a much better opportunity to view the shooter. That witness provided a description of the shooter and the gun, but police tried to pass off this information as coming from the cousin to make him look more reliable. There was no mention of the second witness at trial. Meanwhile, Mr. Dent had turned himself in after hearing that he was wanted for murder, and provided an alibi to police. A non-unanimous jury convicted him of second-degree murder in May 1999. He was sentenced to life.

Innocence & Justice Louisiana’s investigation revealed that the state had hidden documents from Mr. Dent, including police notes about the other eyewitness and descriptions reported by the cousin that did not match Mr. Dent. Innocence & Justice Louisiana filed a motion for post-conviction relief in May 2022, while the Promise of Justice initiative filed to vacate the conviction based on the non-unanimous jury verdict. The state eventually agreed, on August 8, 2022, to move to vacate the conviction because Mr. Dent’s constitutional rights had been violated. Mr. Dent spent almost 25 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

The post Cedric Dent appeared first on Innocence & Justice Louisiana.

Though the victims never identified him, Leroy “Bo” White was one of six Black males charged with raping the female victim. Though he’d been at the park that day, Mr. White left before the crime occurred. The female victim never identified Mr. White, but did make cross-racial identifications of others that Mr. White knew. The youngest co-defendant cut a deal to testify and implicated several others in the crime. All of the co-defendants were facing the death penalty. Two co-defendants were convicted, with one being sentenced to death, before Mr. White’s trial.

Mr. White’s mother was told by a sheriff that Mr. White would be released after 10.5 years if he pleaded guilty (known as 10/6). The judge and trial counsel told Mr. White the same. On the morning he was to go to trial, Mr. White pleaded guilty in March 1970. The parole board stopped using the 10/6 rule, however, and Mr. White was left to serve out his sentence of life without parole.

Innocence & Justice Louisiana’s investigation of the case revealed that the co-defendant who took the deal and implicated his co-defendants was severely mentally ill at the time. Biological evidence was found by the court clerk in New Iberia and Innocence & Justice Louisiana filed for post-conviction DNA testing. DNA results identified several male profiles on the victim’s underwear. Mr. White was excluded as a possible contributor.

The state offered Mr. White an Alford plea, in which he did not have to admit guilt while pleading guilty in his best interest. Having already spent nearly 37 years in prison, Mr. White took the deal to gain immediate release. Mr. White passed away in 2016.

The post Leroy White appeared first on Innocence & Justice Louisiana.