Levon

Levon "Bo" Jones has been freed today. He was released after charges against him were dropped by the same district attorney who successfully prosecuted him in 1993. U.S. District Court Judge Terrence Boyle ordered Jones off death row in 2006 and overturned his conviction, declaring that the defense provided by Jones' initial defense attorneys was so poor that they missed critical evidence pointing to his innocence. After being taken off death row in 2006, Jones remained in prison awaiting a prosecutor's second try at a conviction. On Thursday, Duplin County District Attorney Dewey Hudson decided to give up. He dropped all charges against Jones. Lovely Lorden, the state's star witness and Jones' former lover, recanted her claims that Jones killed Grady. She said a detective coached her on what to say at Jones' trial and that of co-defendant Larry Lamb. Lorden's new testimony also casts doubt on the conviction of Larry Lamb, who is serving a life sentence. Lamb turned down a plea offer of a 6 year sentence and was also convicted based on the testimony of Lorden. He plans to ask the newly formed North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission to review his case. Another co-defendant, Ernest Matthews, pleaded guilty to 2nd-degree murder and was released in 2001. Jones, an African American man who has always maintained his innocence, was sentenced to death in 1993 for the February 1987 murder of Leamon Grady, a white man. Jones is the fifth innocent death row inmate to be exonerated in the United States in the past 11 months, and the third innocent North Carolina death row inmate to be granted release in the past 6 months. He is the 129th death row exoneree since 1973. Jones becomes the eighth North Carolina man spared execution after charges against him were dropped. Jones was represented in post-conviction by the North Carolina Center for Death Penalty Litigation.