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| Trial begins in whistleblowing inmate's suit |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 03/30/2004 |
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After more than eight years of delays, a federal judge began hearing testimony Monday in a lawsuit brought by a convicted killer who blew the whistle on a 1980s pardon-scandal in Louisiana. Billy Wayne Sinclair wants U.S. District Judge Ralph Tyson to rule that he was removed from the State Police Barracks in Baton Rouge and placed in a state prison in retaliation for suing the state Parole Board. Sinclair contends that his agreement with state and federal authorities, in exchange for his cooperation in the pardon-selling case, precluded such a transfer unless he committed a disciplinary infraction. Sinclair was moved from the Louisiana State Penitentiary out of fear of retaliation from other inmates or people involved in the scandal. The defendant, former state police commander Paul Fontenot, contends that an infraction did occur when Sinclair gave his wife a kiss in the barracks' parking lot in 1994. Opening witnesses included state police investigator Joseph Whitmore, who testified that there was an agreement that Sinclair would be housed in the minimum-security barracks for cooperating in the pardon-selling investigation. Whitmore was a state police investigator in that case. Fontenot's attorney, Scott Vincent, said in cross examination that Whitmore knew of no written document assuring that Sinclair would kept at the barracks. Vincent also said that then-corrections Secretary C. Paul Phelps had indicated at least three places where Sinclair could be adequately protected, including two state prisons as well as the barracks. At one point, Phelps expressed concern about the state's ability to protect Sinclair at the barracks because of its open nature, Vincent said. Sinclair, who was convicted of shooting a Baton Rouge convenience store clerk in 1965, has been denied parole several times in the face of stiff opposition of family and friends of his victim, J.C. Bodden. He originally was sentenced to death, but drew a life sentence in 1972 after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down existing capital punishment laws. In 1991, then-Gov. Buddy Roemer cut his sentence to 90 years and made him eligible for parole. Without parole his sentence expires in 2011. The suit against the Parole Board that Sinclair contends was the basis for his transfer concerned a dispute on when he would be eligible for a parole hearing. |
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