Advocates: Conviction in 1997 death vacated; prisoner freed

By KEVIN McGILL
Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A man convicted and imprisoned for more than 20 years in the 1997 shooting death of another man outside a New Orleans supermarket has been freed after prosecutors agreed that his conviction should be vacated. Court records show a motion to vacate the conviction of 47-year-old Cedric L. Dent in the shooting death of Anthony Milton was granted by a judge Monday. The Innocence Project New Orleans organization says its investigation showed prosecutors in the 1990s withheld documents that showed a witness to the shooting gave a description that didn’t match Dent, and that a key witness’s story changed multiple times before he testified at the trial.