Freed inmate wants others held accountable

RALEIGH -- Freed death-row inmate Levon "Bo" Jones said today that the prosecutors and police in his case should themselves be prosecuted for withholding favorable evidence at his 1993 trial.

"They should be accountable for everything they did," Jones, 49, said at a Raleigh news conference. "They should be prosecuted for the wrong they've done, I feel like. Justice should be done."

But the district attorney who prosecuted Jones at trial -- and dropped all charges against him last week -- said Jones should instead blame his trial lawyers for doing such a poor job that a federal judge ordered a new trial. "I've had an open-file policy for 15 or 20 years," District Attorney Dewey Hudson said Monday. "Anything I had, all they had to do was walk into my office and look at my file."

A Duplin County jury convicted Jones of first-degree murder in the 1987 shooting death of bootlegger Leamon Grady.

The prosecution's case rested largely on the testimony of Lovely Lorden, Jones' girlfriend at the time. But as Jones' appellate lawyers later discovered, Lorden had given investigators conflicting statements -- which had not been provided to his trial lawyers. Lorden later recanted her incriminating trial testimony.

After a federal judge ordered a new trial two years ago, Hudson on Friday dismissed all charges against Jones, saying Lorden's recantation was the main reason. But Hudson also said he believed Lorden's trial testimony was true, not her recantation. And he said he wasn't persuaded that Jones is innocent.

Under state and federal law, however, citizens are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

"From the day I was locked up, August 14, 1992, I said I was innocent, until this day," Jones said. "I've always been innocent. I hope you all believe the same."