Wrongly convicted black man freed from jail after 34 YEARS

A man wrongfully convicted of killing a New Orleans woman in 1979 has been released from prison after prosecutors acknowledged serious police misconduct.

Reginald Adams has spent the past 34 years in jail after being convicted of killing Cathy Ulfers, the wife of a New Orleans police officer.

He claims he only confessed to the crime because police had given him drugs and alcohol and then subjected him to a four-hour interrogation.

‘I'm just ready to go. Trying to build me a life. After 34 years, I don't even know how to use a cell phone,’ Reginald Adams told WWLTV following his release on Monday.

Prosecutors have now acknowledged that his confession was inconsistent with the physical evidence.

The Innocence Project New Orleans reached out to the district attorney's office last week after discovering a supplemental police report linking two other suspects, a weapon and stolen jewelry to the murder.

On Monday, District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro dropped the murder case, apologizing to Adams both personally and for the misconduct of police and prosecutors who oversaw the case.

‘If he had been in possession of the supplemental report that was concealed from his attorneys, he would have likely been acquitted,’ said Cannizzaro.

Assistant District Attorneys Ronald Bodenheimer and Harold Gilbert prosecuted the case based entirely on the confession and claimed that the murder weapon was never recovered.

Cannizzaro said, Bodenheimer and Gilbert ‘were fully aware of the additional suspects as well as the recovery of the murder weapon and other physical evidence and that their handling of this case amounts to intentional prosecutorial misconduct.’

The cases against the two suspects linked to the murder were dropped by the district attorney at the time. Both people have since passed away.

Original report here

　

　

　

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