KILLER COP TO BE RE-SENTENCED

NEW ORLEANS -- To reach the corner store, Jasmine Groves must walk
past the intersection where her mother was gunned down on the orders
of a man sworn to protect her: a police officer.

"We think about it every time we pass by," said Jasmine, 18. "You
don't get over it."

Former officer Len Davis was sentenced to die for his role in the
slaying of Jasmine's mother, Kim Groves, who was killed almost seven
years ago because Davis feared her complaint of police brutality would
expose his involvement with the drug world.

But the family and city must revisit the case after a federal appeals
court overturned Davis' death sentence two years ago. Davis now faces
a second sentencing trial August 13.

"Life in prison is something I would accept," Jasmine said. Then after
a long pause: "I don't believe in the death penalty. But in this case
I'd accept it."

The Oct. 12, 1994, slaying marked one of the lowest points in this
city's checkered police history.

After Groves' death, the Police Department established a system to
help detect rogue officers, implemented tougher hiring standards and
replaced the Internal Affairs Division with a new independent body.

Groves' collision course with Davis began when she saw him
pistol-whipping one of the twin brothers who lived across the street
from her home. She marched straight to internal affairs and filed a
complaint.

The next day, she was dead.

Prosecutors said Davis used a police radio to contact co-conspirator
Paul Hardy and ordered him to kill Groves. After getting the news that
Groves had been shot, Davis was caught on tape shouting "Yeah, yeah,
yeah. Rock, rock-a-bye!"

In 1996, Davis and Hardy were convicted and sentenced to death on
three federal counts -- civil rights violation, conspiracy and witness
tampering. Another man was convicted of being an accomplice and is
serving a life sentence.

Davis, who was looking for other corrupt officers to guard a warehouse
full of cocaine, feared exposure. But killing Groves, 32, didn't help
him a bit. The FBI already was on to him.

Federal agents had set up a sting operation to see how many officers
could be reeled in. Eleven were eventually convicted, including Davis,
who got an additional sentence of life, plus five years.

About the same time, Mayor Marc Morial was promising major reforms
within the Police Department. Federal authorities had kept City Hall
in the dark about Davis, unsure whom they could trust.

But in August 1999, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out
the witness tampering charge, saying Groves was technically not a
federal witness because she had filed her complaint only with local
police and not federal authorities.

The appeals court said a new jury would have to re-judge -- in light
of two convictions, instead of three -- whether the death sentence was
appropriate. This time around, Davis and Hardy will get separate trials.

The Davis case, combined with other horrifying police scandals, would
finally be the wake-up call for New Orleans to do something about its
troubled officers.

Another officer would be convicted and sent to death row for killing
her former partner during a restaurant robbery. Other officers would
go down for their dealings with a major cocaine dealer, including
delivering one of his enemies in handcuffs for a street execution.

Police Chief Richard Pennington has brought critical changes, said
Rafael Goyeneche, executive director of the Metropolitan Crime
Commission of Greater New Orleans, a private watchdog group.

The most important change, Goyeneche said, has been the establishment
of a new Public Integrity Division, which is housed -- unlike its
internal affairs predecessor -- far away from police headquarters. An
FBI agent works in the office, helping process complaints.

"I tell people that the best thing they can do is report police
conduct," said attorney Mary Howell, who has handled several brutality
suits against police and is currently handling a wrongful death suit
for the Groves family. "But a lot of people still tell me they don't
want to end up like the lady in the Ninth Ward."