Gary Tyler (born July 19, 1958), from St. Rose, Louisiana, is an African-American man who was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death for the October 7, 1974, shooting death of a white 13-year-old boy and the wounding of another at Destrehan High School in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana. At the time, he was the youngest person on death row. Many observers believed that Tyler was wrongfully convicted, especially after several key witnesses recanted their testimony. Tyler's cause was taken up again in 2007 by human rights organizations and a variety of public figures after his case was highlighted by columnist Bob Herbert in The New York Times. In 2016, after serving 41 years in prison, Tyler pleaded guilty to manslaughter, and was resentenced to the maximum term for that crime of 21 years; since he had already served nearly twice that, he was released.
Background Gary Tyler is one of eleven children of Juanita and Uylos Tyler of St. Rose, Louisiana. His father was a maintenance worker who sometimes held three jobs; his mother worked as a domestic. His father died in 1989 of heart trouble.Bob Herbert, Op-Ed: “They Beat Gary So Bad”, New York Times, 08 February 2007; accessed 30 May 2017 Tyler and his siblings attended local schools, which were segregated into the 1970s. When he was 16, he began to take the bus to Destrehan High School. Previously all-white, the school had conducted court-ordered desegregation since 1968, bussing black students to the school. In the school sessions in 1974, racial tensions had been rising, with fights breaking out in the halls and at games. The white community continued to resist desegregation and black students were harassed at the school by white students.
Events In 1974 formerly all-white Destrehan High School in St. Charles Parish was filled with racial tensions among the students as the administration reluctantly integrated, 20 years after the ruling of Brown v. Board of Education (1954). The school board bussed black students to the school to achieve this.
On the evening of Friday, October 5, 1974, black-white fistfights broke out between students at a football game. When classes resumed on Monday, October 7, the morning was marked by "general turmoil, fighting, stabbing and other acts of violence." School officials decided to dismiss all students early due to the racial clashes.
Earlier that morning, Tyler had been suspended from school. He and a companion were picked up later that day on a road leading to the school by a Deputy Sheriff who suspected they were truants. The Deputy Sheriff, upon taking them to the school to verify his suspicions, learned of Tyler's suspension, and due to the disturbances then in progress, Tyler was instructed to go home immediately.
Tyler got on bus 91, which was filled with other black students bound for the St. Rose area. As the buses were leaving the school grounds, it was necessary for them to pass groups of white students, together with some parents and relatives who had come to pick them up, assembled along the school driveway and along the edge of the street leading from the school. In all, some 100–200 whites were there. Among the crowd were 13-year-old freshman Timothy J. Weber, his parents, and Roland LaBranche.
As the buses started moving, several objects were thrown from the buses and towards the buses, including rocks and a wine bottle. As the crowd outside drew closer to bus 91, a shot was fired from one of its windows. The bullet shot Timothy Weber through the head and the same bullet hit Roland LaBranche in the arm, wounding him. Weber died in hospital several hours later.
The bus was taken to a sheriff's office under guard with all the pupils aboard. A .45-caliber automatic was later found in the bus. All the students from the bus were taken to the police station and interrogated under extreme pressure.
Tyler was arrested for disturbing the peace when he talked back to a police officer; he was soon charged with the murder of 13-year-old Weber. His mother Juanita Tyler and he said that he was beaten severely by the police in an attempt to make him confess, but he refused. Other witnesses later told of being intimidated and threatened by the police. As columnist Bob Herbert wrote in 2007, "A white boy had been killed and some black had to pay. Mr. Tyler, as good a black as any, was taken to a sheriff’s substation where he was beaten unmercifully amid shouted commands that he confess. He would not."
Archbishop Philip Hannan presided at Weber's funeral, calling on the mourners to "restore harmony and make this again the model community that it was for many, many years." The racially charged atmosphere had been heightened by the arrival of members of the Ku Klux Klan in Destrehan, led by national director David Duke, for the professed purpose of protecting whites. Two Klansmen were arrested on October 9 for allegedly carrying a stolen gun. The intervention of the KKK led Governor Edwin Edwards to declare that he would order "whatever force is needed" to maintain peace in the town. Attorney General William J. Guste remarked, "I think the KKK has no business being there. It's not going to add anything to help the situation, it can only irritate the situation. I would hope law enforcement authorities would handle keeping the peace in that area and that amateurs would not get themselves involved in something they have no business to do."
Trial and conviction
Had Tyler been seventeen years old at the time of the shooting, he could have been charged in the district court with any felony, including second-degree murder, which would mean "the killing of a human being when the offender has the specific intent to kill or to inflict great bodily harm." As a sixteen-year-old juvenile, he would have had to be charged with second-degree murder in the juvenile court, where the maximum penalty to which he would be exposed would have been juvenile supervision until age twenty-one at a juvenile detention facility. Although the facts of the case made it difficult for the State to prove the mens rea necessary for a conviction of first-degree murder, which was "specific intent to kill or to inflict great bodily harm upon more than one person," Tyler was charged with first-degree murder, as the only way to impose a harsher penalty than juvenile detention was to charge him with a capital crime.
Tyler's trial in the 29th Judicial Court began with jury selection on November 5, 1975, with Judge Ruche Marino presiding. Security was intense in the small, second-floor courtroom, and Judge Marino said that some witnesses had reported being threatened.
After three days of jury selection, opening arguments were held on November 10. The prosecution sought to enter into evidence a pair of gloves which they alleged had been worn by Tyler on the day of the shooting, and contained traces of gunpowder. Tyler's attorney, Jack Williams, objected that the results of laboratory tests on the gloves had only been made available to him the week before, the day before the trial began. Furthermore, Williams said that he had been assured by the prosecution that the gloves would not be used in the trial. The prosecution said they had only told Williams the gloves would not be used so far as any lab tests were concerned—adding that that assurance was given before the tests were conducted.
Deputy Gary Zeringue testified that he had been given the gloves on the day of Tyler's arrest, without indicating where he got them. He said he kept them for about two months before handing them over to the Southeast Louisiana Crime Laboratory in Jefferson Parish on December 4, 1974, and did not receive the lab report until October 31, 1975. Assistant District Attorney Norman Pitre said Zeringue first notified him about the report on November 3. Calling the delay "terrible," Judge Marino said, "this epitomizes the situation in this parish. I think if we're going to develop a criminal case we should do it right." Marino excluded the gloves from evidence, saying, "if you don't like it you can go to the Supreme Court."
The trial was then halted as the prosecution made an interlocutory appeal to the Louisiana Supreme Court. The Louisiana Supreme Court held an emergency hearing on the evening of November 10 and reversed Marino's ruling the next day, specifying that Williams had the option of having independent tests performed on the gloves. Officers testified that they had taken the gloves from Tyler when he was arrested aboard the school bus. Herman L. Parrish, director of the Southeast Louisiana Criminalistics Laboratory, testified that he had had the gloves in a vault at the laboratory since December 4, but did not get around to testing them for powder flash until two weeks earlier. He also said that he had scraped off most of the gunpowder in making tests and doubted another scraping could be obtained; to Williams' question, "would it do me any good to have the gloves examined by someone else?", Parrish replied, "I question that it would." In light of this testimony, Williams said he would not have an independent test conducted.
On Wednesday, November 12, Maj. Charles Faucheaux of the St. Charles Sheriff's office testified that he was standing near the bus when he heard a shot; he saw a gloved hand holding a smoking pistol out the window of the bus, and then saw Weber fall to the ground. The bus driver, Ernest Cojoe, testified that as a 23-year veteran of the Army, he was familiar with firearms, and he did not believe the gunshot he had heard had come from a .45-caliber pistol fired inside the bus, as the report would have sounded louder. Cojoe then heard someone shout that a shot had been fired from the third seat from the rear of the bus, but he was unsure what had actually happened. Larry Dabney, 17, testified that he had been sitting next to Tyler in the third seat from the rear of the bus when he heard a popping noise, then turned and saw his friend holding a gun; the gun was then passed around a number of students and back to Tyler, who hid it in the stuffing of a bus seat. Sgt. Harvey Kimble told the court that Tyler was one of the passengers taken off the bus and searched after Cojoe drove it to a safe location; no weapon was found aboard the bus at that time, but Zeringue testified that after Cojoe drove the bus to New Sarpy, a more exhaustive search turned up a .45-caliber pistol concealed in a seat near the rear of the bus.
On Thursday, Natalie Marie Blanks, 16, testified that she was sitting next to Tyler and saw him hold the gun out the window and fire the shot; "I saw everything," she said. In hesitant, halting testimony, Blanks said that Tyler told her to get down, then rolled down the window and fired; afterward, he slashed the seat with a knife and hid the gun in the stuffing. Her testimony contradicted Dabney's, who had said that he and another student were sitting in the same seat as Tyler; on cross-examination, Blanks said of Dabney that "he is lying. He has to be." The prosecution rested its case after calling its 18th witness, Kenneth Gaillot, a firearms expert who testified that the bullet which killed Timothy Weber had come from the .45 hidden in the seat.
The defense called six witnesses, including Tyler himself; he spent 75 minutes on the witness stand. Tyler said that he had been suspended from school earlier that day, but returned by sheriff's deputies. He said he boarded the bus to take his little brother home safely. Williams asked him whether he saw the gun. "Well, something was passed to me, but I'm not sure," Tyler responded. "Gary, you would know whether a gun was passed to you, wouldn't you?", Williams asked. Tyler replied, "yeah." When Williams asked, "did you fire the gun?", Tyler replied, "no sir. I'm not a crazy person."