For the second time in a week, an inmate who spent the last 13 years on death row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary walked through the gates a free man after all charges against him were dismissed, state officials said recently.
Albert Ronnie Burrell, 44, who came within 17 days of execution in 1996, appeared bemused and near tears as he walked through the prison gates on January 2. He was met by his sister, Estell Branch, who said Burrell would live with her family in Texas.
A week earlier, his co-defendant Michael Roy Graham Jr., 37, also was freed from death row. He returned to his family in Virginia. Graham had been on vacation in Louisiana when he and Burrell were charged with murdering an elderly couple in 1986. Both were convicted in 1987 and spent the ensuing 13 years at the Louisiana prison.
Warden Burl Cain said longtime employees could not recall any inmates being released to freedom from death row at the sprawling complex.
A new investigation of the case was initiated earlier this year by the state attorney general's office after a state district court judge threw out the convictions.
Defense attorneys had argued there was no physical evidence linking the pair to the murders of Callie and William Delton Frost and testimony against them was highly questionable.
On December 27, prosecutors Frederick Duhy and Ellison Travis dismissed the charges, citing 'a total lack of credible evidence' against Graham and Burrell and prosecutorial misconduct in withholding information from the defense.
Chuck Lloyd, a Minneapolis attorney who represented Burrell on appeal, said the newly freed man is mentally retarded and suffers from schizophrenia.
DNA tests -- unavailable in 1986 -- on blood found at the murder scene did not match either Graham or Burrell, authorities said.