A letter from a Georgia man convicted of murder led prosecutors to reexamine his case – and right their 20-year wrong

By Andy Rose, CNN

(CNN) — After two decades behind bars and with few options left, Marquez Powell sat down several years ago and wrote a letter from a rural Georgia prison more than 100 miles from his Atlanta home. It would eventually help win his freedom.

After being prosecuted at the age of 20, Powell, now 41, was released after a judge overturned his sentence of life plus five years on murder charges in the death of his best friend, Shah Walton – charges that prosecutors later agreed were unfounded.

“After reviewing the entire case, the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office Conviction Integrity Unit determined there was not enough evidence to stand by Powell’s conviction,” the DA’s office said in a filing with a court in Atlanta, as all charges against Powell were dismissed on June 18.

Powell’s first taste of freedom came after years of appeals and denials, a grueling climb that turned when prosecutors took a fresh look and concluded they had made a grave mistake.

“That was definitely the first time where a prosecutor has brought us a case,” attorney Christina Cribbs with the Georgia Innocence Project told CNN.

Powell convicted of murdering friend he had known since middle school

For Marquez Powell, everything changed on April 18, 2005. He met up with Walton in Atlanta to drive around for the evening, according to testimony, visiting a girl’s house, stopping by a music store and selling marijuana.

When his friend Shah pulled up, another person was already in the passenger seat – a man he said he knew from their neighborhood named Jacques Shockley. While Powell was outside the car making a drug sale, Shockley pulled out a gun and shot Walton, who was still sitting in the driver’s seat.

Police discovered one of Shockley’s pants pockets had been pulled inside-out after the shooting, leading them to believe he had been robbed.

“Fearful of retaliation – or being charged himself if he came forward about what he saw – Powell fled the scene,” his attorney wrote later in a court filing.

With the case still unsolved, Powell came forward to police a month later, but tried to minimize his connection, initially saying he wasn’t even in the car. Later he admitted to being at the scene of the crime, saying he had only witnessed it and hid in the bushes until he saw Shockley run away.

With thin evidence, jury is told Powell conspired to kill his friend

By that point, Shockley had fled the state, testimony later showed. Although the lead investigator did not believe he had pulled the trigger, prosecutors later said, Powell was arrested on multiple charges, including murder, on the assumption he had conspired with Shockley to rob his best friend, making him a “party to the crimes.”

“One reasonably might infer from the evidence that Powell and Shockley shared a criminal intent with respect to the shooting,” the Georgia Supreme Court said in a unanimous ruling affirming Powell’s conviction in 2012.

Police later caught up to Shockley at his father’s home in New Jersey, and he was arrested and convicted of murder. By that point, Powell had already been convicted and sentenced to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Shockley is serving a life sentence of his own at Hays State Prison, a high-security facility in rural northwest Georgia.

Powell, who was indigent and could not afford an attorney, wrote his own motions to the court six times in the ensuing years, trying multiple routes to overturn his conviction or at least reduce his prison time. All of them were denied, with judges saying they could not reconsider the case without any new evidence to consider.

“Marquez really was his own best advocate,” Cribbs said. “He has been out there since he was convicted, trying to get someone to listen and understand that he was innocent and never should have been convicted.”

The state Supreme Court even stated that the prosecutor in the case made a “highly improper” statement in front of the jury when she said, “We don’t bring (a case) to indictment if we think the person is innocent, if there is not enough evidence.” But the high court said there was nothing for the judge to do about it at trial because Powell’s attorney didn’t object at the time.

Normally, a definitive ruling at the state’s highest court would be a dead end for a case like Powell’s, but his insistence that he was innocent got a second look from an unlikely corner of the justice system.

Prosecutors reconsider their own case

After it seemed he had run out of options in the court, Powell tried a new strategy that seemed to be the longest of long shots – writing a letter to prosecutors asking them to reconsider their own case.

In 2019, the district attorney’s office of Fulton County, Georgia, opened one of an increasing number of Conviction Integrity Units – known as CIUs – divisions that look into claims of false convictions. After falling on deaf ears in the courts, Powell’s pleas got notice from the same office that put him in prison.

“Mr. Powell wrote us years ago,” said Aimee Maxwell, the deputy district attorney in charge of Fulton County’s CIU. “The first part of our investigation was really trying to figure out why we pursued Mr. Powell because it was very clear from reading (the case file) he is the person who told the police what happened.”

The DA’s office decided to use DNA evidence, which was not part of Powell’s trial, to test a key assumption of the case – that Powell had joined Shockley in emptying one of Walton’s pockets shortly after he was shot.

Samples from the pockets of Walton’s jeans were tested and the results showed the one that was turned inside likely had been touched by Shockley, but not by Powell.

With another link to Powell gone in an already circumstantial case, the DA’s office called the Georgia Innocence Project, asking them to represent him in his effort to finally be released.

“Powell was not part of any plan and had no knowledge that Shockley was going to rob or shoot Walton,” Cribbs, his new attorney, wrote in a new motion filed in May, cosigned by the DA’s office.

“If the jury had heard about the DNA results, in conjunction with Powell’s undisputed testimony that Shockley shot and killed Walton, it is reasonably probable that, at a minimum, at least one juror would have found reasonable doubt and determined that Powell was not guilty,” the motion stated.

The prosecutor’s office, taking a fresh look at the murder, learned the lead investigator shared those doubts.

“He repeatedly told us he was shocked when Mr. Powell was indicted in this case,” said Aimee Maxwell, head of the district attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit.

As Maxwell’s unit took another look, she said their first concern was trying to figure out why a relatively weak case against Powell had been pursued at all.

“It was an odd thing for our office to do,” Maxwell said candidly. “A lot of our investigation was trying to figure out what our office’s thought process was. Did we know anything that wasn’t reflected in the record? And the truth is, there was nothing.”

A judge’s pen ends two decades of injustice

One of the hardest things for prisoners trying to prove their freedom is the constant cycle of raised and dashed hopes, Powell’s attorney said.

“I call it the roller coaster,” said Cribbs, “and people stop getting on the roller coaster because they can’t get their hopes up.”

Powell’s years of persistence finally paid off in a 35-minute court hearing last week.

Watching the hearing via Zoom from a prison holding room, Powell wiped his eyes and sighed heavily as Cribbs once again recited the facts of the case before Judge Rachelle Carnesale, explaining when Walton was fatally shot.

“It was when Mr. Powell was out of the vehicle, which really does not support the fact that this was a plan that they had hatched together and decided to do,” Cribbs told the judge.

Powell became emotional again when the prosecutor said Walton’s sister – his only close surviving relative – fully supported the decision to set him free.

“She actually said the words, ‘I am so excited,’” Maxwell said at the hearing. “The victim’s family is 100% behind him and 100% believe in him.”

As she agreed to sign the document freeing Powell and assuring he won’t be prosecuted again for the murder, Judge Carnesale added prosecutors’ willingness to reconsider their past work was refreshing.

“I think that you all have done a lot of due diligence seeking justice,” she said. “I appreciate the state’s willingness to go back and look at old convictions.”

Powell silently watched most of the hearing, speaking only at the end to quietly say, “Thank you,” as the judge congratulated him on his freedom.

As he left prison behind him, Powell celebrated with family – including a niece and nephew he had never met – as well as several other former prisoners who were exonerated with the help of the Georgia Innocence Project.

The wrongful conviction came at the price of Powell’s freedom and overturning that conviction may now have its own price for the state. Under a law passed in Georgia last year called the Wrongful Conviction and Incarceration Compensation Act, a person whose conviction is later vacated can be awarded $75,000 for every year of incarceration. That means Powell could be entitled to more than $1.5 million as compensation for the time he spent in prison.

While his attorney says Powell hasn’t applied for that compensation yet, she is certain he qualifies.

“We will be helping him look into what his options are and what makes the most sense for him,” said Cribbs.

With only a week of freedom under his belt, Cribbs said Powell is declining interviews for now, reentering the world with some trepidation. Ironically, Cribbs believes his concern is a good sign.

“I think that’s really positive. He knows it’s going to be hard work and knows it’s going to be difficult to transition, and he’s just kind of taking it day by day,” she said. “We’ve got a whole big group of folks that are behind him.”

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