Date: 12-20-1999

Case Style:

State of Connecticut v. Sean Adams

Case Number:

Judge:

Court: Superior Court, New Haven County, Connecticut

Plaintiff's Attorney: New Haven County Connecticut State's Attorney's Office

Defendant's Attorney: Moira L. Buckley

Description: New Haven, Connecticut defendant was charged with murder, conspiracy and assault.

At approximately 2 a.m. on December 14, 1996, the defendant and three fellow members of a street gang, Sean Adams, Carlos Ashe and Johnny Johnson, went to a housing project in New Haven and fired with automatic or semiautomatic
weapons at three unarmed members of a rival street gang. During the attack, the defendant and his companions killed Jason Smith and seriously injured Marvin Ogman and Andre Clark. The motive for the attack was to avenge the murder of a former member of the defendant's gang, Tyrese Jenkins, by members of the rival gang, one of whom was Clark's cousin.

At the hospital, the victims initially said they did not know who shot them but later said that it was 21-year-old Darcus Henry, 18-year-old Johnnie Johnson, 18-year-old Carlos Ashe, and 11-year-old Sean Adams.

Adams and Johnson were arrested on December 20, 1996 and Ashe and Henry were arrested on January 3, 1997.

The defendant, Adams, Ashe and Johnson were arrested and charged in a four count substitute information with murder, conspiracy to commit murder and two counts of assault in the first degree.

All four went on trial in New Haven County Superior Court in November 1999 on charges of murder, conspiracy and assault.

Marvin Ogman and Andre Clark both testified for the prosecution and gave what an appeals court would later characterize as wildly conflicting accounts of what happened. The testified that Adams, Henry, Ashe, and possibly Johnson as the gunmen.

There was not physical evidence that Adams had anything to do with the crimes. No weapons were ever found.

The prosecutors knowingly allowed Andre Clark to lie during Adam's trial.

Outcome: Defendant was found guilty and was sentenced to 100 years in prison.

His conviction was upheld on April 26, 2005, by the Court of Appeals of Connecticut.

Subsequently he filed a state petition for a writ of habeas corpus, alleging that the prosecution had concealed from the defense that it had made a deal with Clark, who had been charged with drugs and weapon offenses.

In 2011, the Connecticut Appellate Court reversed Adams’ conviction and ruled that the prosecution’s failure to disclose the deal with Clark and its failure to correct Clark’s false testimony denied Adams a fair trial.

In 2013, his conviction was reversed when it was found that he had been denied a fair trial and that there was no credible evidence of his guilt.

Adams and his co-defendants were awarded $4.2 million in compensation by the State of Connecticut.

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