Charged Freeman News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

>> the police charged freeman and thompson with murder. the local prosecutor wanted the death penalty for thompson but knew it would be an uphill battle because thompson had never been convicted of a violent crime. that was about to change. >> on december 28, 1984, 19 year old jay la guard, his sister mimi who was 16 and their younger brother who was 12, went to the superdome. after the game, as they were getting in the car, an african-american man jumped into the back seat, pulled out a .357 magnum, said i'm taking your car, i want your wallet and your valuables. jay was instructed to drive a...

>> michael and gordon proposed an unorthodox solution. after freeman's testimony was read into the record they would cross examine the empty witness chair as if freeman was on the stand. >> we took the evidence of the lies and put them in the form of questions. >> you told the jury you didn't know that john thompson was going to rob someone. isn't it true, however, that you set out to rob someone? silence hung in the air after each question was posed, giving the jury time to imagine freeman's response. you suggested in your testimony that you stole nothing from mr. liuzza at all, but you admit...

John thomson had been on death row at angola state prison for 14 years. by 1999 michael and gordon had proven thompson had not committed the carjacking outside the superdome, they had yet to prove their client was innocent of killing 34-year-old ray liuzza in cold blood. however, material michael and gordon finally received from the new orleans' d.a.'s office provided ample grounds for appeal. >> the daily police reports showed us that these witnesses, freeman and perkins, had told very, very different stories in 1985 before the trial as compared to what they said on the witness stand. we bega...

Head in his hands. we thought he was getting out of jail the next day. and now we found out that he had to stand trial with a risk of spending the rest of his life in prison. >> on the morning of may 7th, 2003, john thompson stood before the same judge in the same courtroom where he had been sentenced to death 18 years earlier. michael and gordon had a problem. they couldn't attack the damaging testimony of kevin freeman, the man they believed murdered ray liuzza. >> freeman was shot dead in 1995 while committing a robbery. >> with freeman dead, his previous testimony stood as evidence that th...

>> john thompson was a low-level drug dearly and fence. he grew up in the projects in new orleans. was raised mostly by his grandmother. his father was a career criminal. >> richard perkins confronted mr. thompson after the fact and got mr. thompson to confess that he was the one that killed mr. liuzza. >> perkins said thompson also had an accomplice named kevin freeman. police arrested both freeman and thompson. >> the story that kevin freeman told police was that he and john thompson had been driving home together, and the car had run out of gas. ray liuzza drove past them, parked and began ...