DEVANTE STOUDEMIRE

REGINALD OAKLEY

REGINALD MADDOX

Devante Stoudemire was 17 when first charged with shooting another person in 2010. But the victim refused to testify in Juvenile Court, and the charge was dropped. Months later he was arrested in the shooting death of JerMichael Richardson. He was put on house arrest awaiting trial. Two years later, while awaiting trial, prosecutors charged him in the killing of Steven Mosley. But after a key witness in the first shooting died and another refused to talk, the Richardson murder charge was dismissed. Stoudemire still faces a murder charge in Mosley’s death.

Police arrested Reginald Oakley, 36, on charges he shot up a public housing area with an assault rifle in 2011. But witnesses refused to come to court, and the three attempted-murder charges were dismissed. He was charged again with attempted first-degree murder in July 2012 for a separate shooting, but those charges also were dismissed. Oakley had been indicted on a first-degree murder charge in 1996 and pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter.

On the night of April 5, 2011, Reginald Maddox told police he was inside the Okie Dokie Mart at 1900 Roanoke Ave. and saw Tyrone Carmichael, 22, shoot and kill Cordarrius Armor. A year later, prosecutors had to drop charges against Carmichael when Maddox said he was drunk during the shooting and wouldn’t or couldn’t testify.

IT’S NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO CONVICT —

OR EVEN PRESS CHARGES — WITHOUT A WITNESS.

A year later, Emily Hale tried to convince a witness to testify against Burress in another shooting.

 

The one witness she had to work with was a 16-year-old boy. His address changed, his phone number changed. When he turned 18 before the scheduled trial, he moved out of his mother’s house.

 

Hale called. And called. And called.

 

She is one of three women who shepherd cases as victim and witness coordinators for the Hamilton County district attorney. She writes, phones, counsels, cajoles and sometimes pressures witnesses to come to court.

 

Hale knows if she can meet a witness the first time they come into court, usually days after the shooting, she’ll be able to connect. That meeting plants her smiling face in the mind of the witness.

 

Along the way, Hale shuffles through stacks of pending cases heading to trial. She calls victims, family members, witnesses, police officers, evidence handlers and experts to ensure they’ll be at court when needed.

 

Notices and subpoenas are mailed out or hand-delivered by sheriff’s deputies. More than half come back undeliverable or marked with the wrong address. Hale then calls relatives and workplaces searching for a new phone number. She scours Google and Facebook.

 

Sometimes they’re blunt and say they don’t want to come to court or they’re scared. But often the clue is in the tone of their voice. It fades from confident to shaky. They’ve testified before, in the preliminary hearing. They don’t see why they have to come back.

 

“And you try to explain to them … you’re a key part of this,” she said.

 

If a trial finally comes, and the word guilty passes from the lips of the jury foreman, she smiles inside. When mothers of shooting victims cry at an acquittal, she cries.

A few weeks before Christmas 2010, in the same year as the Coolidge Park shooting, Burress drove a friend, Darius Gustus, in a stolen pickup truck.

 

They pulled up to a school bus stop in Eastdale as the bus was unloading students from Brainerd High School. Gustus fired a gun four times at the students.

 

Police pursued the truck as Burress sped through intersections. Near the intersection of North Willow Street and Garfield Avenue, he hit another car and veered into a utility pole. The truck rolled.

 

Burress ran from the truck, along with Gustus and the girl sitting between them, Lajuana Detrice Woods, 17.

 

Woods later told police that Burress drove and Gustus shot. Police had an eyewitness.

 

But because Burress was still a juvenile and had no violent felony convictions, his bond was set at $30,000 and he was free by March.

 

Woods testified in Hamilton County Juvenile Court. But when she took the stand again a year and a half after the shooting, she said she couldn’t remember even being in the truck with her two friends.

 

The prosecutor made her read the Juvenile Court transcript of her testimony to a jury. Line by line, he questioned her about what she’d said before. Dozens of times she said she didn’t remember or couldn’t recall.

 

“Do you remember being in a red pickup truck at any point in time?” prosecutor Bret Alexander asked.

 

“I don’t recall. I don’t remember,” Woods replied.

 

The judge warned Woods not to lie. He said she could go to jail if she was dishonest. “And I don’t think you’re telling the truth.”

 

Without the transcript of Woods’ original testimony, prosecutors might not have won a conviction and six years apiece for Burress and Gustus. Though both would be parole eligible in less than two years.

 

But that conviction came too late for Darrius Townsend.

Of the six people there that night, none would come forward.

 

Days later, at the Riverbend Festival, police arrested Pittman for possession of a gun.

 

At first he wouldn’t talk. But a weapons charge would threaten his promising future in football. His mom worried. So he agreed to testify, and Burress was arrested again.

 

On the witness stand, Pittman covered his face with his hands, and then he scanned the courtroom. His eyes avoided Burress, seated directly in front of him, in chains and a jail jumpsuit.

 

“Have you been threatened not to come here?” the prosecutor asked.

 

“Sometimes … yeah,” Pittman replied.

 

“All right, who threatened you?” the prosecutor asked.

 

Pittman paused. The courtroom was silent.

 

“Rollin’ 60s,” Pittman said.

 

Defense attorney Kevin Loper asked Pittman why he didn’t talk to police initially.

 

“Because he capable of doing that, he capable of doing that to me, too,” Pittman said.

 

General Sessions Court Judge Bob Moon, now deceased, asked the prosecutor if there was anything similar to federal witness protection in the state system. The prosecutor said there was not.

 

“Then the gangs problem in Hamilton County will never be solved,” Moon replied.

 

“Mr. Burress will remain on a $1 million bond,” he said.

After preparing for trial at least three times over the course of a year, Speek and Williams reached a deal.

 

Williams knew that with no physical evidence and a reluctant witness, he had a weak case.

 

Pittman hadn’t been back to court since he’d testified two years ago.

 

He told a Times Free Press reporter in July that he would not testify again. The victim’s mother, Laronda Townsend, pushed for a trial. She wanted more. Williams had to tell her he didn’t have anything more.

 

If Williams went to trial and lost, which was likely, Burress would have been freed once he finished his first sentence in the school bus shooting.

 

A plea would mean at least some accountability.

 

On Oct. 17, 2013, Burress pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in a “best-interest” plea. In the legal world, that means he admitted a jury could convict him at trial but not that he did the crime.

 

After the hearing, Speek told the media that his client was innocent but knew he faced a gamble by taking it to trial. By taking the plea, he avoided a possible life sentence.

 

For pleading, Burress got five years, which was one year less than for his role as a driver in the school bus shooting.

 

But he was eligible for parole once he pleaded, based on time served and jail credits.

 

His parole hearing is in February.