NEW ORLEANS - The Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office could face liability for allegedly suppressing evidence that could have kept a man who ended up serving almost 25 years out of prison.
Cedric Dent was released in 2021, more than two decades after eyewitness testimony led to a second-degree murder conviction. It was alleged Dent murdered Anthony Melton in September 1997 in the St. Thomas housing projects in New Orleans.
The late Harry Connick Sr. was Orleans Parish district attorney at the time and prosecuted Dent. Once released, Dent sued the office, now led by Jason Williams, alleging information that could have led to his acquittal was kept from the defense and jury.
Judge Brandon Long's Sept. 13 order address Williams' argument that the DA's office could not be sued because it was acting for the State of Louisiana and not Orleans Parish.
A Fifth Circuit decision in 2022 held Dallas County judges were acting on behalf of the State of Texas when setting bail schedules. But at least five other sections of the Eastern District court have rejected that argument in other cases.
Notably, in Burge v. Parish of St. Tammany, the court held a Louisiana district attorney acts for his or her office when making decisions under the Brady rule on whether information that could be exculpatory should be disclosed to defendants.
Williams said Burge had been undermined by another more recent ruling, but Judge Long disagreed.
"Burge answers the question presented," Long wrote. "That question is whether a Louisiana district attorney's office is the entity liable in an official-capacity Section 1983 suit against a Louisiana district attorney for constitutional violations caused by the Brady policies of her office.
"Burge says 'yes.'"
So, Dent's case against the DA's office and unnamed insurance companies will continue. It alleges his May 1999 conviction could have been avoided.
Specifically, the only witness testimony during the two-hour trial came from Jerry Hamilton, the murder victim's 18-year-old cousin who saw the perpetrator in a dark lot.
Dent was never told of a potential death threat on Melton's pager hours before he was shot. Another witness provided a description of the perpetrator that did not match Dent's.
"Because OPDA suppressed the information... and failed to disclose it to defense counsel, Mr. Dent was convicted of second-degree murder," the complaint says.
"He was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole."
Dent found some of this information thanks to a request for records in 2008. More came to light when the Innocence Project New Orleans obtained a detective's handwritten notes in 2021.
Those notes listed the number that left the potential death threat on Melton's pager. That led to a court vacating Dent's conviction, and he was released in August 2022.
"OPDA's violation of Mr. Dent's constitutional rights was not an isolated incident," his lawsuit says.
"To the contrary: it was a direct and proximate result of OPDA's longstanding policy or custom of violating the constitutional rights of the defendants it prosecuted by not disclosing information favorable to their defense."
Chloe Chetta and others at the firm Barrasso Usdin represent Dent, as do lawyers from Zuckerman Spaeder.
Dent was 23 years old when he was arrested. Melton had been in an argument while in line at a store around the corner from where he was later shot in the back of the head.
Dent's name came up in rumors after the murder, but he said he was at a movie when the shooting took place. Hamilton testified otherwise, and Dent was convicted.
The Innocence Project New Orleans notes prosecutors are not retrying Dent and have dropped his criminal case.