ALBANY — Twenty years ago, an Albany County jury convicted Alfonzo Davis of the 2001 murder of 17-year-old bystander Shakira Chambers and the attempted murder of Javonn Morton in the South End — a crime that landed Davis a sentence of 50 years to life in prison.
Two decades later, backed by sworn statements from the prosecution’s star witness and others recanting their accounts, Davis’ new attorneys are calling it a wrongful conviction in a case tainted by the coercion of late Albany police Detective Kenneth Wilcox, according to court documents obtained by the Times Union.
Manhattan attorneys Don Savatta and Joshua D. Kelner filed a motion and adjoining paperwork asking Albany County Judge Andra Ackerman to vacate Davis’ conviction, grant him a new trial or schedule a hearing for Davis on the alleged grounds that the prosecution’s evidence violated Davis’ constitutional rights.
Davis, now 44, is serving time in Great Meadow Correctional Facility in Washington County. He was one of two defendants convicted in the shooting. Sherrod Craft, 43, is serving 50 years to life in Upstate Correctional Facility.
“Alfonzo Davis is actually innocent,” Savatta and Kelner stated in a court memo. “The newly discovered evidence shows that the case against him was fabricated by Kenneth Wilcox, a detective whom history has since discredited.”
Spokespersons for District Attorney David Soares and Albany police provided no immediate statements.
At Davis’ sentencing, then-Assistant District Attorney Joseph Muia told Judge Thomas Breslin that Davis had “shown no remorse and took no responsibility” for the murder.
“I’ll be home soon,” said Davis, attesting to his innocence.
Wilcox, a once-revered detective known for his ability to obtain signed confessions from suspects, died in a car crash in 2006. He fell under scrutiny after two men, Carl H. Dukes and Lavell Jones, were falsely convicted of the 1997 murder of 23-year-old Erik Mitchell. Dukes and Jones said Wilcox and another detective, Ronald Matos, coerced them into confessing. Another man, Jeffrey J. Conrad, later admitted he killed Mitchell.
As well, in 1999, Wilcox secured a similarly wrongful confession from Kevin Cherry, whose first murder trial ended with a deadlocked jury. On the eve of his second trial, Cherry was freed when an eyewitness came forward and identified two other suspects in the April 1999 murder of James Ford.
“Anything with Detective Wilcox’s name on it must be treated skeptically,” Savatta stated.
The prosecution’s only witness to directly implicate Davis at trial — his distant relative, Samuel Frazier — provided Davis’ attorneys with a sworn affidavit recanting his previous claims that Davis confessed to him. On Nov. 1, 2001, police arrested Frazier on a drug charge. Frazier, who spoke with Wilcox, signed a statement claiming Davis and Craft both confessed to him that they killed Chambers.
“All of the information in the statement was provided by Detective Wilcox,” Frazier now states. “Alfonzo Davis never told me that he had been involved in any shooting … I signed the statement because Detective Wilcox told me that, if I did, I would help myself on my pending drug charge. I was also still intoxicated. I just signed what they put in front of me.”
The sequence of events in the attorneys’ written arguments highlighted the longtime violent feud between gang members affiliated with Albany’s “uptown” neighborhoods such as West Hill and “downtown” neighborhoods such as the South End.
On June 3, 2001, the uptown-linked Broderick Greene, 17, known as “Juna,” was shot to death. In a retaliatory shooting, two uptown-affiliated gunmen in hooded sweatshirts intended to kill the downtown-affiliated Morton (and who was later killed in 2002). Chambers, an unintended victim, was on a stoop near Morton on the corner of Fourth and Elizabeth streets when she was fatally shot, the motion said.
Twelve days after the shooting, Anthony Malloy was in an Albany police station on an unrelated matter when Wilcox entered his interview room and began talking to him. Malloy ended up providing a statement to Wilcox that he was attending a memorial gathering for Greene when Craft pulled up in a burgundy Honda Accord. Malloy claimed Craft told him that he and Davis had been responsible for the Chambers shooting.
At trial, Wilcox testified about Malloy’s implications of Davis and Craft. Even though Malloy was a suspect in the shooting — a witness spotted Malloy leaving the scene and said he later threatened him — police made little, if any, effort to corroborate his information, according to the motion.
Malloy is now deceased, but before his death, he provided Davis’ attorneys with a videotaped statement to recant his claims that Davis was involved, the motion said. In his statement, Malloy said that when he was in the interrogation room, Wilcox’s “whole demeanor was he had to close this case. He had to convict someone of this case and he made it very clear to me that he didn’t care who went to jail for it, someone from uptown was going to jail for this case …”
Another person, an informant, told police following the shooting that the shooters were Craft, who was good friends with Greene, and a “kid” named Mickey, revealed to be then 16-year-old Ameek Nixson. At trial, Wilcox testified that he eliminated Nixson as a suspect after a police interview. But Wilcox later admitted there was no record of that interview. Now, Nixson has provided an affidavit to Davis’ attorneys saying that Wilcox and another detective told him he could help himself out if he signed a statement claiming that Davis, known as “Baby Boy,” had confessed his role in the shooting to him.
Wilcox testified that when he interviewed Davis, the defendant denied being involved for 10 minutes — then spent two hours providing him with a detailed confession. Wilcox claimed that Davis said he and Craft rode bikes to Craft’s house off Orange Street where Craft provided him with a gun.
“I believe the street was called Theater Street,” Wilcox claimed Davis told him.
Craft’s family, however, was no longer living on Theater Row at the time of the murder. They had moved about six months earlier. Wilcox’s investigative file, however, showed that the detective believed Craft was still living on Theater Row at the time of the murder, the motion said.
“There is a clear reason why the Davis statement contains inaccurate information that Wilcox believed to be true at the time: it is because Wilcox, not Davis, provided the information,” the motion said.
On May 29, 2003, a jury convicted Davis of second-degree murder, attempted second-degree murder and second-degree weapon possession. He lost his appeal in 2005 and remains incarcerated.