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Pastimes : Murder Mystery: Who Killed Yale Student Suzanne Jovin? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (800)	6/10/2000 1:15:00 AM
From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1397

Re: 6/9/00 - "Frame" claim rejected; killer stays behind bars "Frame" claim rejected; killer stays behind bars By JoAnne Viviano and William Kaempffer, Register Staff June 09, 2000 NEW HAVEN ? A convicted murderer?s fight for a new trial on allegations that he was framed took a blow this week when a Superior Court judge denied the request. Stefon Morant, 32, is serving a 70-year prison term for the 1990 shooting deaths of former Alderman Ricardo Turner and his roommate, Lamont Fields, in their Howard Avenue apartment. Claiming that a former New Haven police detective had coerced a witness to make a statement implicating Morant and co-defendant Scott Lewis, Morant had sought a new trial on the murder charges. In a 29-page decision, Judge Jon C. Blue rejected the claim that Ovil Ruiz, the state?s key witness in the murder trial, schemed with Detective Vincent M. Raucci Jr. to frame Morant. Blue held several hearings on the matter beginning in November 1999 and ending in May. State?s Attorney Michael Dearington, who received the decision late Thursday, said he believed the judge?s ruling was appropriate based on the evidence presented. Morant?s attorney, Michael Fitzpatrick of Bridgeport, said he expected to file appeals of Blue?s decision and an April 1999 decision in which another Superior Court judge rejected a request for a new trial. "Obviously I?m very, very disappointed by the decision," he said. "? The thought of having to explain to an innocent person that he might have to spend the rest of his life in prison, it?s just not something they teach you in law school. It?s a very painful thing to do." Ruiz, 26, a convicted felon, testified in Morant?s 1994 trial that Morant and Lewis believed Turner was going to steal their drug money and that Ruiz heard gunshots as he waited in a getaway car when Morant and Lewis went into the apartment. During an FBI investigation into Raucci?s handling of the case, Ruiz twice in 1996 recanted his original story, saying he had "been living for five years with a terrible secret" and that Morant and Lewis are innocent of the murders. Ruiz reverted back to his original story in 1997, when he told the FBI that the testimony he had given at the murder trials was the truth. Exercising his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, Ruiz refused to testify during Morant?s hearing for a new trial. "? [T]he fact that Ruiz has given so many different stories inevitably raises its own flag of suspicion," Blue writes, "but suspicion is not the standard for the granting of a new trial." Morant was convicted in 1994 of two counts of felony murder, a conviction that has been upheld by the state Supreme Court. If Morant runs out of options on the state level, he could file at the federal level for a new trial, Fitzpatrick said. Lewis, 34, has also been convicted and is asking for a new trial. He is serving a 120-year prison sentence for the murders. ¸New Haven Register 2000 zwire.com