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Lakerfan 4 Life
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 Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 6:49 pm Post subject: Man Convicted Of Michael's Father's Murder Wants Sentence Change |
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| Quote: | LUMBERTON, N.C. -- A sentencing mistake is keeping one of the two men convicted of killing Michael Jordan's father from seeking parole, an attorney said Monday.
Larry Martin Demery, 32, was sentenced to life in prison in the July 1993 shooting death of James Jordan, who was sleeping in his car beside a highway when he was killed in Robeson County. Demery also was sentenced to 40 years for a pair of robberies earlier in the month.
Attorney Hugh Rogers said the sentences were to be served concurrently, but the state Department of Correction has incorrectly recorded them as consecutive sentences.
If the sentences were served concurrently, Demery could seek parole after 20 years in prison, Rogers said. Demery was arrested in 1993 and pleaded guilty in 1995 to first-degree murder.
"Case law now says the remedy is to withdraw the guilty plea and renegotiate a new sentence or have a new trial," Rogers said Monday. "We're not looking for trials, but hopefully we can set aside the convictions, enter a new plea and we'll be looking at one life sentence."
Robeson County District Attorney Johnson Britt agreed with Rogers. Under the plea agreement, which included all of his convictions, Demery was to serve a life sentence, Britt said.
"He's basically asking for the benefit of his bargain," said Britt, agreeing that the procedure involves Demery withdrawing his guilty pleas and asking for a new sentence.
A hearing is set for next week to address the matter, he said.
Also convicted in James Jordan's murder was Daniel Andre Green, 33, who was sentenced to life behind bars for the death. Demery testified that Green pulled the trigger.
Britt said the situation means Demery would serve more time than Green for the murder of James Jordan, whose body was dumped in a South Carolina swamp. |
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3264735&campaign=rss&source=NBAHeadlines |
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| Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2017 3:49 pm Post subject: |
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http://nba.nbcsports.com/2017/06/16/attorneys-say-evidence-tampering-in-murder-of-michael-jordans-father/
| Quote: | Attorneys say evidence tampering in murder of Michael Jordan’s father
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) Attorneys for a man serving life in prison for the murder of Michael Jordan’s father are asking for a new trial, saying someone tampered with the dead man’s shirt after his autopsy.
The autopsy found no hole in James Jordan’s shirt that corresponded with the bullet wound in his upper right chest area, but an agent with the State Bureau of Investigation later contradicted that on the witness stand, according to the lawyers’ filing in North Carolina’s Robeson County Superior Court.
“This newly discovered evidence of tampering adds to the growing list of legal concerns and factual evidence which add weight to the conclusion that not only does Daniel Green deserve a new trial but that he is innocent of the murder of James Jordan,” said Chris Mumma, executive director of the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence, which recently joined Green’s defense.
The state attorney general’s office is reviewing Wednesday’s filing , a spokeswoman said Thursday.
The basketball great’s father was killed on July 23, 1993, in North Carolina. His body was found in a South Carolina swamp.
Green and Larry Demery were convicted after Demery testified at their trial in 1996 that Green shot Jordan as he slept in his luxury car in Robeson County. Green has long claimed his innocence, telling WRAL-TV in 1998 that he was wrongly convicted of pulling the trigger. Attorneys have filed previous motions over the years for a new trial.
Green admitted in the interview that he drove James Jordan’s Lexus and wore his watch as well as an NBA championship ring he was given by his son. He also admitted he helped dump Jordan’s body in the South Carolina swamp.
Michael Jordan, now the owner of the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets, is one of the greatest professional basketball players of all time. He led the Chicago Bulls to six NBA championships, and in 1982, his game-winning shot led the North Carolina Tar Heels to the NCAA championship over Georgetown.
He and his father were close, evidenced in the photo of the two hugging after the Bulls won the 1992 championship.
In Green’s 1998 interview, he said he wrote a letter to Jordan’s family to explain his version of what happened and apologize.
This week’s court filing says the absence of a hole in the right chest area contradicts the prosecutors’ theory that Jordan was lying in his car when he was shot. “It also gave strength to the defense theory that there was an altercation between Demery and Mr. Jordan, which was kept from the jury,” the court filing says.
The filing describes an unusual chain of custody for the shirt. It says Dr. Joel Sexton of Newberry, South Carolina, who performed the autopsy, gave it to a law enforcement officer who gave it to a civilian employee of a company that provided services for funeral homes. That employee gave the shirt to his boss, who said he buried it in his backyard because of the smell.
When law enforcement later determined that the shirt was evidence, the SBI worked with South Carolina law enforcement officials to exhume the shirt and transport it to Raleigh. And it was then that an SBI agent reported the presence of a bullet hole in the upper right chest area of the shirt, the filing says.
Sexton had written in the autopsy report that he looked for and didn’t find a corresponding hole in the right chest area of the shirt that corresponded with James Jordan’s fatal wound. Instead, he found three holes near the shirt tail, he wrote. Those holes would line up with the fatal wound if the shirt were pulled up about one foot, he wrote – “as one might do if pulling a gun from their waist,” the court filing adds.
SBI Agent R.N. Mars testified that the hole he found in the shirt “marked the location where the single, fatal bullet transversed the victim’s clothing and entered his body,” the filing says. “But Agent Mars offered no explanation for the three holes in the lower section of Mr. Jordan’s shirt that Dr. Sexton’s autopsy suggested were caused by the bullet. The district attorney, who had once highlighted Dr. Sexton’s notes about the absence of a bullet hole in the chest area of the shirt, did not ask about the three holes in the lower section of the shirt, and – critically for Mr. Green – neither did his defense attorneys.” |
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| Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2018 8:50 am Post subject: |
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https://nba.nbcsports.com/2018/08/03/man-convicted-of-killing-michael-jordans-father-gets-new-attorney/
| Quote: | Man convicted of killing Michael Jordan’s father gets new attorney
SANFORD, N.C. (AP) — One of the men convicted of killing basketball star Michael Jordan’s father 25 years ago has a new attorney to pursue his claims that he didn’t shoot James Jordan.
WRAL-TV reports attorney Chris Mumma will represent Daniel Green, who appeared Friday in Lee County court to request a new trial and a new attorney.
“When I became familiar with the full facts of the case, I became convinced he is not guilty of the murder of James Jordan, that he was not there when James Jordan was murdered, he was not part of a robbery of James Jordan, all things he was convicted of,” said Mumma, executive director of the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence.
Mumma previously had worked with Green’s attorney, Scott Holmes, who voluntarily withdrew from the case.
Green and Larry Demery were convicted of killing James Jordan as he slept in his luxury car in Robeson County in July 1993. His body was found in a South Carolina swamp.
At their 1996 trial, Demery said Green shot Jordan. Green, who has been seeking a new trial for 18 years, has said he helped dispose of Jordan’s body after Demery killed him.
Michael Jordan, who owns the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets, is one of the greatest professional basketball players of all time. He led the Chicago Bulls to six NBA championships. In 1982, his game-winning shot led the North Carolina Tar Heels to the NCAA championship over Georgetown.
Last year, The Associated Press reported that Green’s attorneys filed a motion in Robeson County saying someone had tampered with James Jordan’s shirt after his autopsy.
The autopsy found no hole in James Jordan’s shirt that corresponded with the bullet wound in his upper right chest area, but an agent with the State Bureau of Investigation later contradicted that on the witness stand, according to the 2017 court filing.
A hearing will be held in December to determine whether Green should get an evidentiary hearing, Mumma said. |
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