Convicted murderer could get new trial
By John Joyce
Published in News on November 11, 2014 1:46 PM
For a Wayne County man convicted of first-degree murder in September, a hearing in Carteret County later this month might mean the difference between life in prison and a new trial.
Defense attorney Charles Gurley filed a motion for appropriate relief on behalf of his client, Javonta Marquez Ellis, 17, within 10 days of the teen's conviction. The challenge came after two new witnesses came forward with new information.
A third witness has since come forward.
Ellis, along with Stephon Deandre Jennings, 19, was convicted in the 2012 shooting death of Kevin Bell in the 900 block of Hugh Street during an alleged botched robbery.
The defense, from the outset, contended that two other men committed the murder in what they suggest might have been a drug deal involving prescription pills.
Eyewitnesses picked Ellis and Jennings out of photographic lineups shown to them by Goldsboro police, but only after their names had surfaced throughout the community as having possibly been involved.
Both defendants pleaded not guilty but were convicted by a jury in September and sentenced to life in jail.
Gurley, representing only Ellis, immediately filed notice of appeal.
According to court records, however, two additional witnesses came forward after the conviction and sentencing and said they knew for certain Ellis was innocent.
One witness, currently in jail for an unrelated crime, said he sat in a parked car across the street from the murder when it happened and saw two men, not Ellis and Jennings, commit the murder.
The second witness identifies the man she said admitted to the shooting the night of the murder, a man defense attorney's mentioned during the trial as GPD's initial suspect who was later ruled out by investigators.
The suspect, Nebraska Best, is currently in jail awaiting trial on a separate murder charge.
According to the motion, Jessica Uzzell said she was at the apartment of Best's girlfriend the night Bell died. Best arrived at the home after 1 a.m., an hour after the shooting, and stepped out back with Ms. Uzzell's then-boyfriend Jaquan Dennis.
Dennis later told Ms. Uzzell that Best admitted to trying to rob Bell, and when Bell pulled a gun to defend himself, Best shot him.
Lastly, and most recently, in a statement dated Oct. 29, a man who served time with one of the state's witnesses in the trial came forward and said the witness knowingly testified to false information.
Brandon Leach was one of the men with Bell the night he died, and testified as one of the state's witnesses. He picked Ellis out of a photo lineup presented to him by police.
Leach testified while serving time for a DWI conviction.
The new witness, John Woodard, told Gurley he was acting as a trustee with Leach while the two men were incarcerated together. In Woodard's sworn statement, he alleges Leach told him before he testified that he felt Ellis was innocent.
The two men spoke again after Leach testified and all Leach told him was that he was subpoenaed about something he had said earlier in the case, according to the statement.
Woodard found out later that Ellis had been convicted.
Because Ellis' attorney filed the motion within the required 10-day window of his conviction, the trial judge, the Honorable John E. Nobles, has to be the one to hear the motion and determine what, if any, recourse there ought to be up to and including a new trial.
The motion is scheduled to be heard in Carteret County Court Nov. 20.
A motion for appropriate relief such as this is required to be heard by the judge who presided over the initial trial. In this case, the judge, the Honorable John E. Nobles, is assigned to Carteret County, forcing the hearing to be moved there from Wayne County Superior Court.