New evidence frees murder convict after 17 years

LaMonte Armstrong (center) was released from prison on Friday, June 29, 2012, after serving 17 years for murder. New technology has matched a palm print found at the crime scene to another man. / WFMY

(CBS/AP) GREENSBORO, N.C. - A North Carolina man who spent nearly 17 years in prison for a murder case in which law officers and prosecutors hid key details is going free.

Superior Court Judge Joe Turner on Friday ordered the release of 62-year-old LaMonte Armstrong.

Turner said it was a day when he truly knows that justice is being served, reports CBS Affiliate WFMY.

Armstrong was convicted of the 1988 killing of Ernestine Compton, one of his former professors at North Carolina A&T State University, and sentenced to life in prison.

He has always claimed he was innocent.

Key to the case was testimony from a convicted felon who now says police pressured him to accuse Armstrong.

Police Chief Ken Miller said investigators have matched a palm print found at the crime scene to another suspect who was later convicted of killing his father, and who died in a 2010 traffic accident.

Duke University's Wrongful Convictions Clinic and Innocence Project has worked with Armstrong to get his case heard in court. Duke Law professors Theresa Newman and James Coleman have worked on the case along with students and alumni from the school; five students continued to work on the case, pro bono, after they graduated.

According to Greensboro Police, a partial palm print, along with other latent prints collected at the scene, was sent to the State Crime Laboratory for identification in the early 1990s, but no match was made.

Advances in technology since Armstrong's trial have now helped police identify the palm print as belonging to Christopher Bernard Caviness, a person of interest in this crime.

Greensboro Police said the original partial palm print was run through its SPEX fingerprint database, which produced a hit. The match was then independently confirmed by a second print examiner and by the State Crime Laboratory.

Caviness was convicted of the murder of his father in 1989. After his release from prison, Caviness was killed in a traffic accident in Winston-Salem in 2010.

Armstrong could be re-tried in the case, but the District Attorney said that is not likely.

WFMY correspondent Mark Geary reports Armstrong thanked his lawyers and supporters, calling them his "A-Team."

When asked if he was angry over his conviction and incarceration, Armstrong replied, "Yes, I'm somewhat angry, yeah. You can't help that, I'm human. I'm glad to see Guilford County finally rectified itself, and God's justice allowed and bestowed upon them probably where they had no control."

Chief Ken Miller said Greensboro Police will continue to work with the Wrongful Convictions Clinic and the D.A.'s Office as the case is re-opened as an active investigation.

"While these types of cases are very rare, we will always strive to conduct our investigations with integrity to ensure justice is done," said Miller. "We owe that to Mr. Armstrong and to the family of Professor Compton, and it is the right thing to do."

[ryan55399]

http://youtu.be/cSeXU0ZBo98?hd=1

Some excerpts from Mr. Armstrong's prison interview and the day of his release.

[2011peterm]

Lamonte Armstrong was convicted for one reason only; because he was a black man in a southern state and the southern states are still not treating blacks as equals in an integrated society by providing them with equal protection under the law and Constitution of the United States of America. The KKK is alive and hiding behind the mask of those who are in power and nobody knows who they are, and they will continue to persecute blacks in any way they can and racial profiling is one of the ways and overlooking key facts in prosecuting a case is another way and they will continue to do so until they are held to task for so doing. Where is justice in our country when the "TOP COP", the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is found guilty of contempt of Congress? To whom does one put one's faith when the system is broken and nobody has the integrity to do anything to fix it other than patch work fixing when the whole system needs streamlining to keep up with the technology and innovations of the 21st century. We are a sick nation and we had better fix it or we will lose our freedoms we have fought and died for.

[busterdawgggy]

"Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer." - William Blackstone.

This could have easily been a capital crime, and an innocent man's life ended. And he never would have gotten justice.

[omnibus66]

It is not a stretch here to conclude that from the beginning, the cops and prosecutors knew they had the wrong person. But to some a conviction is more important than any feelings of a guilty conscience knowing that the actual criminal is walking free. After all this did happen in North Carolina, a very red state where "law and order", not justice, reigns supreme.

[johntate777]

In this case, you have to wonder about police. It says the real killer was a person of interest. Police had a palm print but it didn't match anything in the system. Did they not think to check it against their suspect list?!

Far too often we here of prosecutors hiding evidence. Sometimes totally. Sometimes they hold it back until the last possible second to hurt the defense. If they know there case is so weak then they shouldn't be taking it to trial to begin with. You know, "reasonable doubt." Nobody likes to lose but they're destroying people's lives and going against the basic core of the justice system. You can't just put some random person in prison because somebody has to pay. You have to make sure you it's the right one! When prosecutors pull these tricks, they should be incarcerated. That's the only way to keep them honest (they are lawyers and thus, not trustworthy to begin with). Right now, they know the legal system will just turn their head and ignore their great wrong-doing.