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| Five inmates arraigned in officer's death |
| By The Advocate |
| Published: 05/28/2004 |
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Relatives of a slain Louisiana State Penitentiary security officer listened stoically Thursday as five inmates accused in the slaying answered the charges against them in state District Court. A West Feliciana Parish grand jury indicted each of the five Angola prisoners in March on a charge of first-degree murder in the Dec. 28, 1999, death of corrections Capt. David C. Knapps, 49. The state is seeking the death penalty against inmates Barry Edge, 44; David Mathis, 27; Robert G. Carley, 36; Jeffery Cameron Clark, 43; and David Brown, 31. Clark is being held at Hunt Correctional Center because he has offered to testify against the other four. When asked for their pleas in appearances before 20th Judicial District Judge George H. Ware Jr., each defendant answered, "Not guilty." Knapps was beaten and stabbed to death in the educational building of Angola's Camp D satellite prison during an apparent escape attempt. Two other officers who entered the building at different times were taken hostage, but a prison riot control team freed them and killed one of the alleged hostage-takers, inmate Joel Durham, 26. Numerous delays have stalled the case's progress; the most recent on April 15 when Ware was forced to postpone the defendants' arraignments until Thursday because he could not find enough lawyers to represent the men. State law requires that a defendant in a capital case be represented by at least two "death penalty-qualified" attorneys, Ware said during the April 15 session. The judge had only four of the 10 lawyers chosen when he postponed the defendants' arraignments. If all five defendants were to receive the death penalty, their executions apparently would be a first for Louisiana's criminal justice system, said Burk Foster, a professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Ware set the next hearing in the case for Aug. 27. |
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