Friday, July 25, 2008
By Gwen Filosa
An Orleans Parish jury freed an Algiers teenager who had been charged in the shooting of New Orleans Police Department Officer Andres Gonzalez after a traffic stop two years ago.
Joshua Hall left Criminal District Court on Wednesday night a free man, after having been charged with being accessory after the fact in the shooting that left Gonzalez paralyzed from the neck down.
Hall testified that he had given Eddie Harrison III a ride to Algiers Point on May 22, 2006, when police pulled them over because Hall's Toyota Corolla had illegally tinted windows.
Harrison bolted from the car while Hall remained in the driver's seat. When Gonzalez caught up with the fleeing man, Harrison shot him four times with a .40-caliber handgun. Harrison, who already was a convicted felon, is serving 100 years for attempted murder.
Hall, who was 17 at the time, originally told police he didn't know Harrison, but his attorney said he lied only out of fear during the chaotic moments when the Police Department thought Gonzalez might die from his wounds.
"The police kept telling him they would charge him with murder," said attorney Thomas Calogero. "He clammed up."
The jury acquitted Hall after about one hour of deliberations. The accessory charge carries a sentence of up to five years in prison upon conviction.
Hall was with police in his Toyota as Harrison made off, police witnesses told the jury.
Police at first booked Hall with attempted first-degree murder, the same as Harrison, but later downgraded his charge to being an accessory after the fact.
Calogero said the charge didn't fit. His client answered the officers' questions, and he stayed put in the car after Harrison bolted.
Hall wasn't called to testify at Harrison's trial in March and has been out on bond since two months after his arrest in 2006.
Hall has no felony convictions, Calogero said. But the 19-year-old is awaiting trial next month on a misdemeanor charge of marijuana possession, court records show.