nothin Framed, Freed—& Beginning New Lives | New Haven Independent

Framed, Freed — & Beginning New Lives

Paul Bass Photo

Morant and Lewis in the WNHH studio.

Stefon Morant notices the moon at night. He can see it now whenever he wants.

Until weeks ago, Morant and Scott Lewis were living in jail. They had spent decades in jail. They were supposed to spend the rest of their lives in jail.

Then a federal judge forced a reluctant state of Connecticut to set the two men free.

A blistering FBI investigation into corrupt cops and the New Haven drug trade — an investigation that cast a strong suspicion that Lewis and Morant had been framed for the murder; an investigation that in any case eviscerated the threads of evidence on which the pair had been convicted — had failed to convince the state to release Morant and Lewis. The two kept fighting, with the help of idealistic lawyers, to win their freedom.

The newly freed inmates spent Thursday morning in the WNHH radio studios to revisit their journeys and look at what life has in store for them now. Click on the above sound file to listen in on the conversation. Click here to download the show (“Dateline New Haven Ep. 5”) from iTunes.

The murder in question was the 1990 double fatal shooting at 4 a.m. in the Hill of a former New Haven alderman-turned-drug-dealer named Ricardo Turner and his lover in their bed. It was a sensational murder. The revelations that emerged years later, when Morant and Lewis were left in jail, proved sensational, too.

Morant.

Their story may make you angry. It may also give you hope at a time when we hear so much about corruption and destroyed lives in America’s criminal-justice system.

Meanwhile, the pair is getting on with their lives. Moran is looking for work; he’d like to find a helping” Lewis has married and launched a real-estate broker’s practice. He’s also going to school in hopes of becoming a paralegal — and putting some of the law he learned in jail to win his freedom to use for other people.

As the program neared an end, the news emerged that Connecticut’s Supreme Court — the same court that had once denied Scott Lewis his freedom — had declared the state’s death penalty unconstitutional.

Lewis was asked his reaction.

Good thing I wasn’t on death row,” he remarked. It was close.”

He meant it. He was also smiling.

Click here for a detailed account of the FBI revelations and the specifics of this case, from a 1998 exposé in the now-defunct New Haven Advocate. And click here to read the full FBI report, which covered wide ground about New Haven’s drug trade.


Previous coverage of this case:

2nd Killer” Ordered Freed In Corrupt-Cop Case
Framed Killer” Is Free At Last
Scott Lewis Comes Home
Framed Killer” Free At Last
Scott Lewis Comes Home
State Seeks To Keep Scott Lewis Jailed
Federal Judge Orders Alderman’s Killer” Freed
Alderman’s Killer” Gets 1 More 2nd Chance

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