Great News! Justice for William Labrador (Tortola Death of Lois McMillen)
Maggie
I've ever seen. From Court TV:
Court tosses American's conviction in Tortola murder, bars retrial
William Labrador was released about seven hours after the ruling was
announced.
By John Springer
Court TV
An English court overturned the murder conviction of New Yorker William
Labrador Monday and barred prosecutors from retrying him. In its ruling, the
court cited the unreliable testimony of a prison informant who claims Labrador
confessed to drowning a Connecticut woman.
The ruling in London by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
made Labrador, 39, a free man late Monday afternoon. Labrador had been held in
a hilltop prison on the British Virgin Island of Tortola ever since the Jan.
15, 2000, murder of Lois McMillen.
Upon his release from Her Majesty's Prison at Balsam Ghut just before 6 p.m.,
Labrador hugged his mother, told reporters he was looking to get on with his
life, took a dip on the ocean and had a dinner at a local hotel. He is
scheduled to fly home to New York on Tuesday or Wednesday.
"It's time to go live my life again, which thank God was not taken from me,"
Labrador told the Associated Press.
"He's coming home! He's coming home!" Labrador's mother, Barbara Labrador of
Long Island, told Courttv.com when reached by telephone earlier in the day. "No
retrial. That's it. Period. He's out."
The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the highest court for appeals
arising from British-dependent territories in the Caribbean, has the last word
in the matter. Its ruling effectively ends the prosecution of Labrador for
McMillen's murder and those of two friends charged with attempting to cover up
the crime.
The only witness to provide any direct evidence during the men's five-week
trial in 2001 was Labrador's cellmate, 61-year-old Jeffrey Plante of Texas.
Plante, a convicted swindler whose criminal record stretches back to 1964,
testified that Labrador got religious before Easter in 2000 and confessed to
drowning McMillen when an argument over money escalated to violence.
"It would be hard to imagine a witness who was less deserving of belief than
Jeffrey Plante," the five-judge panel wrote in its 38-page ruling.
"We won. We won on everything," said London barrister Edward Fitzgerald, who
handled Labrador's appeal for free after hearing about Plante's background.
The court agreed with the defense's chief contention during a three-day hearing
in February. The trial judge erred, Fitzgerald argued then, by failing to
explicitly caution Labrador's nine-member jury that prison informants like
Plante inherently have motives to help prosecutors make cases against other
inmates.
Josephine McMillen, Lois McMillen's mother, said Monday that the ruling does
not come as a surprise based on what she heard at the hearing in London. The
judges, by their questions and statements, seemed to be tipping their hand, she
said.
"There's nothing we can do. We are very disappointed," McMillen said. "It
doesn't change our mind about anything ... None of them have gotten off scot
free, but I don't think three years and a couple of months is enough."
McMillen, who splits her time between homes in Middlebury, Conn., and Tortola,
said she and her husband, retired manufacturing executive Russell McMillen,
found Plante's testimony credible when they heard it first at a pretrial
hearing in 2000 and again during the trial in 2001.
Murder in paradise
Lois McMillen, an attractive 34-year-old painter and former model, was
well-known on Tortola from her family's annual vacations there over 20 years.
In the days leading up to her death, she spent time with Labrador, Michael
Spicer of Virginia, Alexander Benedetto of New York and Evan George of Oregon.
After spending a day shopping with her mother on the U.S. Virgin Island of St.
John, McMillen headed out alone to listen to a blues band perform at the Jolly
Roger Inn on Tortola. That same night, the four men said that, after they
stopped at a bank machine not far from the Jolly Roger, they dropped Labrador
off at an intersection.
Labrador testified that he changed his mind about going to a bar in Cane Garden
Bay and walked home, where he spent the rest of the night alone watching
television.
McMillen's parents spent a restless night waiting for Lois McMillen to arrive
home. They called police at about 10 a.m., fearing that she had been in an
accident somewhere on the mountainous island and was unable to summon help. A
short time earlier, a passerby had told police that a body of a woman was lying
on the rocks along the shore of Sir Francis Drake Channel.
Within hours, Labrador and his friends were being held for questioning based on
the fact that their shoes were wet and sandy and Labrador had a cut on the
bridge of his nose. During the trial, a police evidence technician testified
that the shoes were not wet when he collected him.
At the insistence of the defense, the trial judge ordered the evidence
technician to develop film from a camera seized from the men. The photos were
taken before the murder. A blowup of several of the images showed what appeared
to be a sun blister on the bridge of Labrador's nose.
"Thank God for the Privy Council. I immediately got on my knees and thanked
God," Barbara Labrador said. "William had such faith in the job [the defense
lawyers] did and so do I. It was awesome."
'A compulsive liar'
The Judicial Committee also granted a motion by Benedetto to reinstate his
acquittal. Although the trial judge dismissed a murder charge against the
36-year-old son of a New York book publisher, the Eastern Caribbean Court of
Appeals ruled last year that jurors should have been allowed to decide
Benedetto's guilt or innocence based on Plante's testimony.
Plante testified that Benedetto and Labrador fought often in prison. At one
point, Benedetto accused Labrador of being "more guilty" than he was. Benedetto
maintains that the statement had to do with $350,000 he and Labrador borrowed
from Benedetto's father to start a business together.
"I am very pleased that after almost three and a half years justice has finally
been served for us, but it hasn't been served for Lois," Benedetto said. "We
still don't know who killed her. I think they should reopen the case."
Benedetto said he cannot believe that prosecutors would go to trial with
nothing more than the words of their accuser, Plante, whom he called a
"monster" who has "screwed over" everyone he has ever met.
In the ruling, which was written by Lord Hope of Craighead, the justices had a
few choice words about Plante as well.
"Their Lordships have concluded that no value whatever can be attached to
Plante's evidence. He has been shown to be a compulsive liar," Lord Hope wrote.
"His evidence is so lacking in credibility as to make it impossible to regard
any conviction on his evidence alone as safe ... In light of what is now known
about Plante and all the defects that have been revealed about the content of
his evidence their Lordships are in no doubt that it would be wholly contrary
to the interests of justice for Labrador to have to face a new trial based, as
it would have to be, wholly on Plante's evidence."
Prosecutors did not returns calls seeking comment. After the trial, Plante was
extradited back to Texas to serve out more than 30 years remaining on a 45-year
sentence imposed in 1987 for grand larceny.
Maggie
"France wants more evidence. . . . And I'm thinking, you know, the last time
France wanted more evidence, it rolled right through Paris with a German flag."
-- David Letterman
tiny dancer
"Maggie" <maggi...@aol.comSPAMBLOC> wrote in message
news:20030407235339...@mb-fk.aol.com...
> Finally, finally. This was one of the most horrendous miscarriages of
justice
> I've ever seen. From Court TV:
>
> Court tosses American's conviction in Tortola murder, bars retrial
> William Labrador was released about seven hours after the ruling was
> announced.
I'm shocked to say the least, but glad to hear he is out. I certainly
didn't expect him to get out without another retrial. If I was him, I'd
hot-foot it off that damn island as quickly as I could.
td