OKLAHOMA CITY - Two men who spent nearly 15 years on death row for the 1993 killing of a teenage girl during a drive-by shooting were released from prison after prosecutors dropped the murder case against them.
Yancy L. Douglas, 35, and Paris L. Powell, 36, both walked out of the Oklahoma County Jail on Friday after prosecutors decided they could not successfully retry the men for murder because of conflicting stories from the key witness, District Attorney David Prater said yesterday.
A federal judge dismissed the men’s convictions in 2006 after ruling that a “linchpin’’ witness in their cases, Derrick Smith, received a deal from prosecutors that was never disclosed to the defense. That dismissal was upheld earlier this year by a federal appeals court.
Prater, who was not in office when the men were convicted, said he and two senior prosecutors all reviewed the archived evidence and police reports independently and came to the same conclusion.
In June 1993, Smith and Shauna Farrow, 14, were walking down a street in Oklahoma City when gunmen opened fire, killing Farrow and seriously wounding Smith, an admitted gang member who prosecutors alleged was the target of the shooting.
Smith testified, but later said in an affidavit he never saw who shot him, that he was drunk and high that night, and that he testified only because prosecutors threatened him with more prison time if he didn’t.