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Wrongly Convicted Database Record
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Charge: |
Murder |
Sentence: |
Life Imprisonment |
Years Imprisoned: |
25.88 |
Year Crime: |
1992 |
Year Convicted: |
1993 |
Year Cleared: |
2018 |
U.S. State or Country of Crime: |
Georgia |
County or Region of Crime: |
Chatham |
City of Crime: |
Savannah |
Result: |
Judicially Exonerated Released |
Summary of Case: |
"Mark Jones, Kenneth Gardiner and Dominic Lucci were codefendants wrongly convicted in November 1992 of malice murder and possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony in the shooting death of Stanley Jackson in Savannah, Georgia on January 31, 1992. The three men were in the Army stationed at Fort Stewart, about 50 miles southwest of Savannah. Jones was 20, Gardiner was 21 and Lucci was 22. They were arrested in Savannah less than an hour after the drive-by shooting of Jackson at about 10 p.m. The three soldiers were white and Jackson was black. Their prosecution was based on the testimony an eyewitness, James White, that he saw Gardiner and Jones leaning out the windows of a 1992 Chevrolet Cavalier and shooting at Jackson on a street corner. The men presented the alibi defense that they were at a wedding rehearsal dinner for Jones and his fiancee in Hinesville -- who were set to marry the next day -- until between 9:15 and 9:30 pm, when they left to drive to an impromptu bachelor party in Savannah about 50 miles away: Consequently, they were on the road when Jackson was killed shortly after 10 pm. (Bing Maps indicates it takes an hour to drive from Hinesville to Savannah.) Their presence at the rehearsal was supported by alibi witnesses who testified at their trial. The trial judge denied the defendant’s motion for a directed verdict of acquittal based on insufficiency of the evidence. After their conviction by a jury, the three were sentenced to life in prison for murder, plus 5 years for committing a felony while in possession of a firearm. Their convictions and sentence were affirmed by the Georgia Supreme Court on June 13, 1994. The Court ruled that the evidence was sufficient to support the conviction of Lucci that was solely based on circumstantial evidence, and the convictions of Jones and Gardiner that was based on circumstantial and direct evidence by White. In 2009 Centurion Ministries began an investigation of the three men’s case. Centurion's post-conviction investigation discovered the prosecution had failed to disclose an exculpatory police report that a witness told the police that several hours after Jackson's shooting white men with military style haircuts and semi-automatic weapons drove through the Yamacraw Village public housing project threatening “to shoot blacks who hung out on street corners.” The concealed report supported their alibi defense. Centurion also obtained an Affidavit from White that he had not gotten a good look at the shooters and he was pressured by the police to identify the soldiers at trial. The three men each filed a post-conviction habeas corpus petition for a new trial based on the new evidence by White and the Brady violation of the non-disclosed report, that was known as the Yamacraw Report. The three petitions were consolidated because they were all based on the same claim. After an evidentiary hearing the habeas court denied the petition on the basis their claims were procedurally defaulted. They appealed and in 2014 the Georgia Supreme Court determined their claims were not defaulted, and remained the case to the habeas court to conduct a Brady analysis to determine the merit of their claim. The habeas judge denied the petition after determining the Yamacraw Report would not have been admissible at trial and thus didn't qualify as Brady material required to be disclosed by the prosecution. The three men appealed. On November 2, 2017 the Georgia Supreme Court unanimously reversed the denial of their habeas petition on the basis that considering the totality of the evidence, the prosecuton's failure to disclose the Yamacraw Report undermined confidence in the jury's verdict. The Court's ruling emphasized the testimony by Yamacraw could have affected the outcome because the State's case was based on White’s now-recanted trial testimony: “Jackson was killed shortly after 10:00 p.m. on January 31, 1992. There was trial testimony from several witnesses that, until 9:15 or 9:30 p.m., the petitioners were at the rehearsal of Jones's wedding,[9] which was to take place the next day, and a dinner afterward, which took place in a town that was over a 50-minute drive away from the relevant areas of Savannah. No murder weapon was ever recovered; no firearm was found in the defendants’ car, no casings from an automatic weapon were found there, and the forensic scientist who vacuumed the interior of the car looking for gunshot residue found none.” (Jones v. Medlin, 807 SE 2d 849 (Ga. Sup. Ct. 2017). Mark Jason Jones, Kenneth Eric Gardiner, and Dominic Brian Lucci were released on $30,000 bond each on December 20, 2017, after 25 years and 10-1/2 months in custody. On July 12, 2018 a motion by the Chatham County District Attorney to dismiss the charges was granted. DA Meg Heap didn't acknowledge the men's innocence, instead stating that “Based on the age of the case, witnesses no longer being available and other issues, it just could not be retried.” Centurion Ministrie's founder Jim McCloskey told reporters: “I will say this until the day I die — there's no doubt in my mind that these three men had absolutely nothing to do with this crime.”" |
Conviction Caused By: |
Eyewitness recanted and prosecution failed to disclose an exculpatory police report. |
Innocence Proved By: |
"On November 2, 2017 the Georgia Supreme Court unanimously reversed the denial of their habeas petition on the basis that considering the totality of the evidence, the prosecuton's failure to disclose the Yamacraw Report undermined confidence in the jury's verdict. The Court's ruling emphasized the testimony by Yamacraw could have affected the outcome because the State's case was based on White's now-recanted trial testimony: "Jackson was killed shortly after 10:00 p.m. on January 31, 1992. There was trial testimony from several witnesses that, until 9:15 or 9:30 p.m., the petitioners were at the rehearsal of Jones's wedding,[9] which was to take place the next day, and a dinner afterward, which took place in a town that was over a 50-minute drive away from the relevant areas of Savannah. No murder weapon was ever recovered; no firearm was found in the defendants' car, no casings from an automatic weapon were found there, and the forensic scientist who vacuumed the interior of the car looking for gunshot residue found none." (Jones v. Medlin, 807 SE 2d 849 (Ga. Sup. Ct. 2017). Mark Jason Jones, Kenneth Eric Gardiner, and Dominic Brian Lucci were released on bond in December 2017, after 25 years and 10 months in custody. On July 12, 2018 a motion by the Chatham County District Attorney to dismiss the charges was granted." |
Defendant Aided By: |
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Compensation Awarded: |
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Was Perpetrator Identified? |
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Age When Imprisoned: |
21 |
Age When Released: |
47 |
Sex: |
Male |
Skin/Ethnicity: |
White |
Information Source 1: |
"Completely Free': No Retrial of Ex-Soldiers in 1992 Killing, By Jeff Martin and Russ Bynum (AP), USNews.com, July 12, 2018" |
Information Location 1: |
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/texas/articles/2018-07-12/completely-free-no-retrial-of-ex-soldiers-in-1992-killing?int=undefined-rec |
Information Source 2: |
"Jones v. Medlin, 807 SE 2d 849 (Ga. Supreme Court, 11-2-2017) (Reversing denial of writ of habeas corpus, vacating convictions and ordering new trials for Jones, Gardiner, and Lucci.)" |
Information Location 2: |
"https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1809831228726501443&hl=en&as_sdt=5,38&sciodt=6,38" |
Information Source 3: |
"Gardiner v. State, 264 Ga. 329 (Ga. Supreme Court 1994) (Affirming conviction and sentence of Gardiner, Lucci, and Jones.)" |
Information Location 3: |
"https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8915943634916664079&q=Mark+Jones+kenneth+gardiner+georgia+&hl=en&as_sdt=6,38" |
Information Source 4: |
"Ex-soldiers get bail in Georgia murder case after 25 years in prison, By Associated Press, Times Free Press (Chattanooga, TN), December 20, 2017" |
Information Location 4: |
https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/breakingnews/story/2017/dec/20/ex-soldiers-get-bail-georgia-murder-case-after-25-years-prison/459634/ |
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Innocents Database Created and Maintained by Hans Sherrer innocents@forejustice.org