‘Completely free’: No retrial of ex-soldiers in 1992 killing
SAVANNAH, Ga. — Mark Jones says he and two of his Army buddies were out for an impromptu bachelor party when Savannah police arrested them in a drive-by slaying that would land them behind bars for more than 25 years. Now prosecutors are dropping the case for good, sparing the men from a new trial after Georgia’s top court threw out their convictions.
“We spent the better part of three decades in prison for something we didn’t do,” Jones told The Associated Press on Thursday from his home in Port Aransas, Texas. “We’re finally completely free.”
Chatham County District Attorney Meg Heap said she won’t seek a new trial against Jones, Kenneth Gardiner and Dominic Lucci for the Jan. 31, 1992, slaying of Stanley Jackson.
The three men were released from prison in December after the Georgia Supreme Court threw out their murder convictions, saying in a unanimous ruling that prosecutors improperly withheld a police report that would have helped their defence.