Officer ordered woman's killing in 1994, feds say. Death sentence commuted by Biden

Julia Marnin, The Charlotte Observer on Dec 23, 2024

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Thirty years ago, a New Orleans officer offered protection to an accused drug dealer in exchange for a deadly favor: killing a woman who filed a police brutality complaint against him, court documents say.

At Len Davis’ request, the man shot Kim Marie Groves in the head, killing her in a New Orleans neighborhood the evening of Oct. 13, 1994, according to the Justice Department. He fired one shot, federal prosecutors said.

Davis was sentenced to death in her killing in 1996. His conviction and sentence, which was later challenged, was affirmed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in June 2010.

Now, President Joe Biden has commuted the death sentences for Davis and 36 other individuals on death row in federal prison.

“Those individuals will have their sentences reclassified from execution to life without the possibility of parole,” the White House said in a Dec. 23 statement.

Davis is imprisoned in U.S. Penitentiary Terre Haute in Vigo County, Indiana, about an 80-mile drive southwest from Indianapolis, records show.

Information regarding Davis’ current legal representation wasn’t immediately available.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons declined to provide information on whether Davis has an attorney, as it doesn’t “comment on the conditions of confinement for any individual,” a spokesman told McClatchy News.

In a statement, Biden said his decision to commute 37 out of 40 death row inmates was in line “with the moratorium my administration has imposed on federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.”

“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Biden said.

Woman is killed soon after filing complaint

According to the appeals court’s decision, Groves filed her complaint after she saw Davis’ former police partner “pistol-whip her ‘nephew’” on Oct. 10, 1994.

The Justice Department previously accused Davis of taking part in the beating, according to the agency’s May 1996 news release.

After the beating, Groves filed a police brutality complaint against Davis with the New Orleans Police Department’s internal affairs office, according to the federal appeals court.

Davis discovered Groves named him in the complaint on Oct. 12, 1994, the court said.

Then he devised the plan to have her killed before she was fatally shot the next day, according to the court.

The man accused of shooting her, Paul Hardy, was sentenced to death on May 1, 1996, a few days after Davis was sentenced, according to the Justice Department.

Hardy’s sentence was overturned by a judge who found him “mentally incompetent,” Nola.com reported.

A man described as an associate of Davis and Hardy was also involved in the scheme, according to court documents.

The man, Damon Causey, was sentenced to life in prison in connection with the killing, according to NOLA.com.

Groves’ youngest child, Jasmine Groves, recalled how her mother was planning her 13th birthday party before she was killed on Davis’ orders in a September 2020 statement shared by the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana.

The night before her birthday, Jasmine Groves said she was playing cards with her cousin during a sleepover when her mother came into her room and sang her happy birthday. Then her mother left the house.

“I smiled the whole time she sang because she always made me feel special. For some crazy reason, it felt like she knew she would not get to wish me a happy birthday the next day,” Jasmine Groves said.

Soon after her mother left, Jasmine Groves said she heard the phone ring. When she answered, she heard a woman scream that her mother was shot, she said.

“My mother died because she stood up for her civil rights and the young people in the Lower 9th Ward,” Jasmine Groves said.

Jasmine Groves has been involved with New Orleans for Community Oversight of Police, an organization advocating for the establishment of a community police accountability council, Nola.com reported.

The three sentences not commuted by Biden

Three people on federal death row didn’t have their sentences commuted by Biden, according to the White House.

Those individuals include Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Robert Bowers and Dylann Roof, USA Today reported.

In March 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death sentence for Tsarnaev, who was convicted in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, McClatchy News previously reported.

Bowers was convicted in connection with killing 11 people in the Tree of Life mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 2018, according to USA Today. Roof was convicted in a 2015 mass shooting, when he killed nine Black congregants of the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

In his statement on the commutations, Biden called for an end to federal death sentences.

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