Billy
11-18-2006, 06:51 AM
Ex-N.O. police to face trial in beating
Officers caught on video in Quarter
Saturday, November 18, 2006 By Susan Finch
Two former New Orleans police officers will go to trial March 12 on a felony grand jury indictment stemming from their involvement in the videotaped beating of a retired teacher in the French Quarter last fall, a Criminal District Court judge decided Friday.
Robert Evangelist, 36, and 29-year-old Lance Schilling, veteran cops both fired after the incident, could draw sentences of up to five years behind bars if a jury in Judge Frank Marullo's court convicts them of second degree battery for the Oct. 8, 2005, beating of 64-year-old Robert Smith. The jury will also decide if Evangelist is guilty of false imprisonment, a charge that carries a maximum possible sentence of 10 years behind bars.
Meanwhile Friday, Marullo also chose March 14 to try a third 8th District officer, Stuart Smith, for simple battery, a misdemeanor, in the Davis arrest.
http://www.nola.com/images/spacer.gifSmith, back on the police force after a 120-day suspension earlier this year, was accused by the grand jury of cursing and jabbing his finger in the chest of an Associated Press news producer whose crew was among those taping the incident.
The accused officers have all said they stopped Davis on suspicion of being drunk and that he became confrontational. But Davis maintains he hadn't been drinking. He said he left his hotel room to buy a pack of cigarettes when he was accosted and pummeled by the officers.
Davis was booked after the confrontation for public intoxication, simple battery and public intimidation, but the city attorney's office last spring said he would not be brought to trial on the municipal charges.
During an open court discussion Friday with lawyers on both sides of the case, Schilling attorney Franz Zibilich told Marullo that two FBI agents had witnessed the Davis arrest and helped with it.
Marullo pressed Assistant District Attorney Dustin Davis for details: "If they were involved in the incident, why weren't they charged?"
Davis said an investigation by his office determined that the agents had committed no crime: "They were there and participated to a certain degree," he said.
When Evangelist's lawyer, John DiGiulio, asked whether the agents would be witnesses in the March 12 trial, Marullo responded, "I think they should be subpoenaed to testify."
Zibilich said the officers' defense will be that they used reasonable and necessary force to overcome the resistance and that the alleged victim had a duty to submit peacefully to arrest and did not."
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-18/116383358059990.xml&coll=1
Officers caught on video in Quarter
Saturday, November 18, 2006 By Susan Finch
Two former New Orleans police officers will go to trial March 12 on a felony grand jury indictment stemming from their involvement in the videotaped beating of a retired teacher in the French Quarter last fall, a Criminal District Court judge decided Friday.
Robert Evangelist, 36, and 29-year-old Lance Schilling, veteran cops both fired after the incident, could draw sentences of up to five years behind bars if a jury in Judge Frank Marullo's court convicts them of second degree battery for the Oct. 8, 2005, beating of 64-year-old Robert Smith. The jury will also decide if Evangelist is guilty of false imprisonment, a charge that carries a maximum possible sentence of 10 years behind bars.
Meanwhile Friday, Marullo also chose March 14 to try a third 8th District officer, Stuart Smith, for simple battery, a misdemeanor, in the Davis arrest.
http://www.nola.com/images/spacer.gifSmith, back on the police force after a 120-day suspension earlier this year, was accused by the grand jury of cursing and jabbing his finger in the chest of an Associated Press news producer whose crew was among those taping the incident.
The accused officers have all said they stopped Davis on suspicion of being drunk and that he became confrontational. But Davis maintains he hadn't been drinking. He said he left his hotel room to buy a pack of cigarettes when he was accosted and pummeled by the officers.
Davis was booked after the confrontation for public intoxication, simple battery and public intimidation, but the city attorney's office last spring said he would not be brought to trial on the municipal charges.
During an open court discussion Friday with lawyers on both sides of the case, Schilling attorney Franz Zibilich told Marullo that two FBI agents had witnessed the Davis arrest and helped with it.
Marullo pressed Assistant District Attorney Dustin Davis for details: "If they were involved in the incident, why weren't they charged?"
Davis said an investigation by his office determined that the agents had committed no crime: "They were there and participated to a certain degree," he said.
When Evangelist's lawyer, John DiGiulio, asked whether the agents would be witnesses in the March 12 trial, Marullo responded, "I think they should be subpoenaed to testify."
Zibilich said the officers' defense will be that they used reasonable and necessary force to overcome the resistance and that the alleged victim had a duty to submit peacefully to arrest and did not."
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-18/116383358059990.xml&coll=1