IPNO has achieved the release of twelve innocent men since its inception in 2001. Three of these men were under 18 when they were arrested. Two exonerees served what one commentator described as possibly the longest wrongful incarceration in U.S. history: 27 1/2 years.

Nine of the twelve cases have involved evidence other than DNA or in addition to DNA, such as witness evidence, forensic science evidence and documentary evidence. The total number of years of wrongful incarceration for IPNO clients is 209 years.

Please click on the links below to learn more about some of IPNO's cases. If you want to learn more about how IPNO gets its cases, or know a prisoner who wants to request assistance, please go to Casework.

Earl Truvia and Greg Bright walk out of prison after 27 1/2 years of wrongful imprisonment.

Travis Hayes
Allen Coco
Dennis Brown
Dan Bright
Greg Bright and Earl Truvia
Dwight Labran
Cedric Willis

Travis Hayes

TRAVIS HAYES IS HOME AT LAST
Travis Hayes is surrounded by media and supporters after leaving the Jefferson Parish Jail on December 20.

On December 20, 2006, Travis Hayes was finally released from prison after serving nearly ten years for a crime he did not commit. The Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office dropped the charges against him on January 17, 2007 and Travis celebrated his 27th birthday as a free man two months later.

On April 5, 1997 at around 6:20 pm, Tommy Vanhoose, owner of Comeaux's grocery store in Bridge City, was shot and killed by a masked gunman in a botched robbery.

Ryan Matthews and Travis Hayes were arrested later that night approximately 8 miles away in a car similar to the car witnesses at Comeaux's grocery store described as the getaway. Neither boy was even a month past their 17th birthdays. Both boys lived over 10 miles from Bridge City.

Both boys were interrogated by the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office and gave similar accounts of their whereabouts that day. After 6 hours of interrogation through the night by Jefferson Parish Sheriffs' Office detectives that was not taped or recorded, just turned17-year old Travis Hayes gave in to the series of events presented to him by the interrogating officers and said he had driven Ryan Matthews to Bridge City to a store. He and Ryan were charged with First degree murder.

Early Problems with the Case

Even at the time they were tried, there were significant problems with the case against Ryan and Travis: 1) 1. DNA testing on the ski-mask worn by the gunman and discarded at the scene of the crime produced a person's DNA profile that was neither Travis nor Ryan's; 2) The murderer was seen fleeing the scene in a getaway car after jumping headlong through the open passenger-side window. According to numerous witnesses Travis Hayes' passenger-side window did was broken and could not be opened; 3) The witnesses in Comeaux's grocery store describe the gunman as 5'4" to 5'7". Ryan Matthews was 6'1".

The Real Perpetrator

Several years after Ryan and Travis were convicted, numerous inmates reported that while they were in the Jefferson Parish jail, they had heard an individual by the name of Rondell Love bragging about committing the murder of Tommy Vanhoose. Love is 5'7" and records show he lived near the grocery store in Bridge City and was serving a prison sentence for a murder committed in Bridge City later that year. Upon learning Love's name, attorneys for Ryan Matthews obtained his DNA profile from his court file. His DNA profile exactly matched the DNA profile found on the ski-mask discarded at the scene of the crime.

The Exoneration of Ryan Matthews

The Prosecution then performed further DNA testing on all the clothing discarded by the gunman, which failed to link Ryan or Travis to the clothes. Ryan Matthews was released in August 2004 after the Jefferson Parish District Attorney's Office agreed to grant him a new trial and then dropped the charges against him. Ryan walked out of prison on August 8, 2004 as a 24-year old man who had spent the previous 7 years in prison for a crime he did not commit - 5 years on death row.

To the amazement of many, Travis Hayes's case was not afforded the same treatment by the Jefferson Parish District Attorney's office and IPNO fought for over two and a half more years to get Travis out of prison too. Finally on December 20, 2006, Travis Hayes came home for the holidays.

Travis Hayes gets an enthusiastic hug from IPNO's co-counsel, Stephen Singer, upon his release.

Allen Coco

On October 12, 2006, Allen Coco walked out of a Lake Charles jail after serving 11 years for a rape he did not commit. DNA testing conducted by a private laboratory had excluded him as the perpetrator in March, however, the State of Louisiana resisted his release for seven months, despite the fact that subsequent testing by a State crime laboratory arrived at the same conclusion in July.

Mr. Coco was arrested in 1995 for aggravated rape, two counts of aggravated burglary, and one count of simple burglary for a May 25, 1995 attack in a Lake Charles home. One count of aggravated burglary and the simple burglary charge were dropped prior to trial, along with a slew of charges in other open cases for which Mr. Coco had suddenly and conveniently become a suspect.

The victim testified at trial that she had been raped by a man who broke into her home after she fell asleep watching television. The attacker held a knife to her throat during the rape. At some point, the victim was able to take the knife from the attacker, who then attempted to flee through a broken window. He became tangled in the blinds, at which point the victim stabbed him in the buttocks. The attacker escaped. Police assisted the victim in constructing a composite sketch of the attacker, which she found unsatisfactory, yet she continued to view it. Nearly a month after the rape, the victim was shown two photo arrays containing both another suspect and Mr. Coco. Using the faulty composite for reference, she identified Mr. Coco as her attacker.

State experts testified that blood found at the scene, including that found on the blinds, was of the same type as that of Mr. Coco (as well as nearly 6% of the black population). Apparently, no testing was performed on the rape kit or the victim's clothing.

Based on this evidence, Mr. Coco was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Quite apart from the tenuous identification and the less-than-exacting blood evidence testimony, left unexamined were questions about the effect the circumstances of the attack would have had on the victim's ability to get a good look at the attacker, notably illustrated by the fact that the victim described the attacker as wearing a short-sleeved shirt but never mentioned any tattoos. Mr. Coco has tattoos covering both arms, as well as his chest and back. Mr. Coco also did not have a stab wound on his buttocks or anywhere else on his body.

IPNO investigated Mr. Coco's case because of the questionable evidence used against him, and filed an Application for DNA Testing and Post Conviction Relief on October 14, 2004. Nearly two years later to the day, after being proved innocent of this crime, Mr. Coco exited the State's correctional system to little fanfare, but to the immense delight of his family and friends (see picture below).

Dennis Brown

Dennis Brown was released from prison in September 2004, after serving nineteen years for a rape he did not commit. A young black man with learning difficulties, Dennis was seventeen years old when he was arrested. He was convicted in St. Tammany Parish after rashly volunteering to stand in as a "filler" in a line up at the police station. The victim had only been able to see her attacker's eyes, as he had covered his face. Although he was not even a suspect, the victim of the rape picked Dennis as the man who had attacked her.

Rather than question the astronomical odds of this coincidence, the police stopped investigating the matter and Dennis was prosecuted and convicted on the basis of this "identification." Dennis, who had previously lived at home caring for his blind father, was sentenced to life in prison. Dennis had no right to a lawyer in his post-conviction appeals, and so was expected to represent himself. Dennis maintained his innocence of the crime, but he had little formal education and was unable to file anything on his own behalf.

IPNO accepted his case the same week that Dennis received a form from the prison notifying him that his father had died. When the DNA test results came back excluding Dennis, he said, "I told you I wouldn't waste your time."

After six months of re-testing, and the reversal of Dennis' conviction by the court, the district attorney agreed to bail for Dennis while the case was re-examined. In September 2004 all charges against him dropped. Dennis is now rebuilding his life with the help of IPNO's Exoneree Advocacy Program.

Dennis Brown leaves prison after 19 years for a rape he did not commit.

Dan Bright

Dan was convicted in 1996 of a murder and robbery that took place outside a bar in the Ninth Ward in New Orleans. Dan's trial lawyer did zero investigation of the case and was drunk during trial, and so made a poor job of his defense. It later emerged that the FBI had been in possession of the name of the real killer all along. Despite Freedom of Information Act requests that this information be released, the US government took the perspective that the killer's privacy rights were implicated and declined to reveal the name. It took a lawsuit in federal district court to resolve this impasse, with the judge finding that Dan had the right to this information. The identity of the real killer together with other evidence was presented in the state district court, and eventually Dan's conviction was reversed by the Supreme Court of Louisiana. He was released, much to the relief of not just his family, but also of Kathleen Hawk Norman, the jury foreperson who had convicted him and who later campaigned for his exoneration. Kathleen is now IPNO's Board chair. Dan's case is illustrative of the issues of government accountability that beset wrongful conviction cases and the need for policy reform when it comes to priorities and protecting the innocent.

Dan is now rebuilding his life with the help of IPNO's Exoneree Advocacy Program, which has included working as a mentor to at-risk youth in inner city New Orleans.

Greg Bright and Earl Truvia

Greg Bright and his co-defendant Earl Truvia were convicted in 1975 of second-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole. At the time, Greg was 20 years old, and Earl was only 17. The convictions were based solely on the testimony of a single supposed eyewitness. The jury never heard from the coroner, who would have testified that the time of death did not coincide with the time that the witness claimed she saw the murder. Nor did the jury know that the eyewitness was a paranoid schizophrenic who suffered from auditory and visual hallucinations, who was medicating her mental illness with heroin, who gave the police information in exchange for cash, and was testifying under a false name to conceal her own problems with the law.

Greg and Earl were granted an evidentiary hearing in February 2002, at which IPNO demonstrated not only the problems with the single eyewitness, but also that the State had concealed a police report describing alternate suspects. The convictions were overturned and they were granted a new trial. The Louisiana Supreme Court upheld the reversal of their convictions, and on June 24, 2003, after 27 1/2 years, Greg and Earl were both released after the Orleans Parish District Attorney dismissed all charges. They left prison with nothing but a ten dollar check each from the State of Louisiana, and garbage bags full of legal paperwork.

Greg and Earl are now rebuilding their lives with the help of IPNO's Exoneree Advocacy Program. Greg lives in rural Mississippi, with his girlfriend and her disabled son, whom he provides care for. Greg'sand his ability to find work is hampered by his transportation problems. Earl has remained in New Orleans and has worked for a Residents's Initiative in the housing project where the murder for which he was wrongfully convicted took place.

Greg and Earl when they were arrested in 1975; they spent the next 27 1/2 years in prison for a crime they did not commit, and were released when they were in their mid to late forties.

Dwight Labran

In 1997, Dwight Labran, a 24 year old black man with no prior convictions, was convicted of first degree murder in New Orleans. The only purported witness to the killing was the owner of the car in which the body was found, who named Dwight at the shooter. Dwight had an alibi; he was in a restaurant on the other side of town, eating dinner with some of his family. Nonetheless, on the basis of the testimony of the sole eyewitness, Dwight was convicted and sentenced to life without parole after the jury could not agree as to whether he should receive the death penalty.

After IPNO became involved, further investigation revealed that the sole eyewitness and owner of the car where the body was found had lied about his identity. At the time of the killing, he had outstanding warrants for offenses involving firearms and cocaine. By giving a false name and naming Dwight as the killer, he not only avoided becoming a suspect, but also avoided getting arrested for his own outstanding warrants. None of this evidence was presented at trial.

IPNO filed a 90 page application for post-conviction relief, and the conviction was reversed on the basis of the perjury of the eyewitness. In 2001, the district attorney dropped the charges, and Dwight was released on December 10, 2001.

IPNO client Dwight with his parents as he leaves prison.

Cedric Willis