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Paris Powell

Other Oklahoma Exonerations
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On the night of June 24, 1993, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 14-year-old Shauna Farrow walked home from a party with 17-year-old Derrick Smith, a member of the Southeast Village Crips gang.  As a hatchback car passed by, the driver’s side door opened, and the driver and a passenger opened fire, killing Farrow and injuring Smith. 
 
Smith, who was facing charges for drug trafficking, was questioned by the police about the identity of the shooters.  At first he gave inconsistent reports, but eventually he implicated Yancy Douglas and Paris Powell, two members of a rival gang.  Douglas and Powell were charged with the crimes in August 1993.
 
The two men were tried separately, almost two years apart.  Smith was the key witness at both trials, identifying Douglas and Powell as the shooters, and stating that he received no special deals from prosecutors in exchange for his testimony. Both men were convicted and sentenced to death -- Douglas in October 1995, and Powell in May 1997.
 
Attorneys for Douglas and Powell appealed the convictions, but received no relief.  Then, in 2001, Smith wrote an affidavit recanting his testimony against Douglas and Powell.  He stated that he had been drunk and high on the night of the shooting, and was unable to identify the shooters, but police had coerced him into naming Douglas and Powell and offered a reduced sentence for his drug trafficking charges. 
 
Attorneys presented this new evidence in federal court and in 2006, a federal district court granted Powell's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Douglas's similar petition, however, was denied. In 2009, the Tenth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals District affirmed the decision vacating Powell's conviction and at the same time granted Douglas's petition to vacate his conviction as well. Prosecutors decided not to retry the case, and on October 2, 2009, all charges were dropped and Douglas and Powell were released from prison. In 2010, Powell and Douglas filed a federal civil rights lawsuit. Douglas settled his case for $1 million in August 2017. A month later, Powell settled his case for $2.15 million. 
 
In 2011 Powell was arrested in Oklahoma City and charged with several felony counts including rape, kidnapping, robbery and larceny. He represented himself at trial, and was acquitted on all counts by a jury on December 19, 2011.
 
In 2013, the attorney who prosecuted Powell and Douglas was suspended for 180 days by Oklahoma Supreme Court. The Court ruled that the prosecutor had abused the subpoena process to force witnesses to cooperate, failed to disclose evidence to the defense and obstructed the defense's access to evidence.
 
- Alexandra Gross

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Posting Date:  Before June 2012
Last Updated: 11/8/2017
State:Oklahoma
County:Cleveland
Most Serious Crime:Murder
Additional Convictions:Attempted Murder
Reported Crime Date:1993
Convicted:1997
Exonerated:2009
Sentence:Death
Race/Ethnicity:Black
Sex:Male
Age at the date of reported crime:19
Contributing Factors:Perjury or False Accusation, Official Misconduct
Did DNA evidence contribute to the exoneration?:No