QUOTES OF THE DAY: "After Morant left the stand, his mother, Linda, took his seat. She reflected on how the effects of her son’s incarceration rippled across their family. “When they took Stefon to prison, they took me along with him. I have not been the same since.” Linda Morant spent over $100,000 on legal fees “until I stopped her,” said Stefon. To afford his lawyers, she depleted her retirement savings and mortgaged her home. “My mother worked hard for her money. Why should she have to spend it on something I didn’t do?” Stefon said. He began to cry. “Oh man…”Morant’s mother lamented how even after being home for a decade, her son has still not found peace. “For so many years, we’ve been going through this,” she said. “When is it gonna end? Am I gonna be alive when it ends?"
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SECOND QUOTE OF THE DAY: "While Morant walked out of the courtroom on Tuesday, Judge Nagala called out, “Happy birthday, Mr. Morant.” He thanked her and left."
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Morant’s testimony on Tuesday raised a key question about the City of New Haven’s actions in this trial, which began roughly three weeks ago: Why is the city defending Morant’s conviction when it could instead disavow Raucci as a rogue cop who violated the police department’s code of conduct? On Tuesday, Morant had no answers. “We’re here. Why are we here? What are we doing here? What is going on?” he said."
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "In 2021, Morant won an absolute pardon from the Connecticut Board of Pardons and Paroles. His criminal record was expunged. “They apologized for what happened to me, and that was great for me to hear,” recalled Morant. He has not heard anything similar from the city. “How do you feel today that the city and the New Haven Police Department have never taken responsibility for what they did to you?” asked Brustin. Morant replied, “Shame on them, shame on them.”
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GIST: “They’re still trying to protect the corrupt cop. It makes no sense,” Stefon Morant said on Tuesday while testifying in his own wrongful-conviction trial. “What does [former Det. Vincent Raucci] have on them that they continue to do this today?”
Morant offered those words on the witness stand of a Hartford courtroom as part of his civil-rights lawsuit against the City of New Haven and six former detectives.
Morant, who turned 58 on Tuesday, criticized the defense — and especially the city — for arguing in favor of the same evidence that a state court deemed unreliable.
In his lawsuit, Morant has alleged that he and Scott Lewis were framed by Raucci for the 1990 double murder of former alderman Ricardo Turner and his partner Lamont Fields.
Morant’s testimony on Tuesday raised a key question about the City of New Haven’s actions in this trial, which began roughly three weeks ago: Why is the city defending Morant’s conviction when it could instead disavow Raucci as a rogue cop who violated the police department’s code of conduct?
On Tuesday, Morant had no answers. “We’re here. Why are we here? What are we doing here? What is going on?” he said.
Thomas Gerarde, the attorney representing the City of New Haven, asked Morant on Tuesday whether a jury in 1994 had found him guilty. He then asked if Morant’s first decade of appeals and requests for new trials had been denied. To each question, Morant replied, “Yes, sir.”
The state’s position on Morant’s guilt changed in 2015, when he won a sentence reduction in a Connecticut Superior Court. He eventually received a full pardon and a $5.84 million wrongful-conviction award from the state. The city, meanwhile, has opted to defend Morant’s original conviction during his civil-rights trial.
In U.S. Judge Sarala Nagala’s federal courtroom, Morant described all that he missed during his 21 years of incarceration.
He lost five of his teeth due to not having access to a quality dentist, he said. He was stuck in a cage when his younger brother died from lupus. He is constantly watching for potential violence, keeping his back to the wall wherever he goes.
Most of all, he said, his incarceration kept him from becoming the father that he hoped to be. He teared up while speaking about all the graduations and baseball games that he missed over his two decades in prison.
Twyla Washington, Morant’s eldest child and only daughter, sobbed while testifying on Monday about her father’s incarceration. He went to prison when she was 5 or 6. At the time, she recalled, “I was daddy’s little girl. And then he was gone.”
She hated the lack of privacy provided by the prison during their meetings. When she wanted to tell him something personal, they would “get low on the table and whisper.” They could not hug for more than “two seconds” without being scolded by a corrections officer, she recalled.
“He missed everything. But mostly, what really hurt me the most, was him missing every graduation I had…I felt like he should have been there,” Washington said. When she graduated from high school, her father sent her a check for $1,000. “I was happy about it, but it would have been nice for him to be there to give it to me rather than receiving it in the mail.”
Since leaving prison, said Washington, her father spends as much time as he can with her two children. He attended her son’s pre-school graduation and her daughter’s middle school graduation, she said. Next May, Washington herself is scheduled to graduate from college with a degree in special education.
“I told [Morant] to clear his schedule for May,” she said. “I don’t know whether to jump for joy or cry, because finally, it’s gonna happen.” Morant laughed with joy when discussing his plans to watch Washington receive her diploma.
On Tuesday, Morant reflected on his $1,000 graduation gift to Washington. While he was in prison, he said, he worked as much as he could to save for his children. Initially, he only made 75 cents per day. By the end of his incarceration, he earned no more than $1 per hour. Despite his meager wages, Morant found a way to send his kids money on birthdays, holidays, and graduations.
After Morant left the stand, his mother, Linda, took his seat. She reflected on how the effects of her son’s incarceration rippled across their family. “When they took Stefon to prison, they took me along with him. I have not been the same since.”
Linda Morant spent over $100,000 on legal fees “until I stopped her,” said Stefon. To afford his lawyers, she depleted her retirement savings and mortgaged her home.
“My mother worked hard for her money. Why should she have to spend it on something I didn’t do?” Stefon said. He began to cry. “Oh man…”
Morant’s mother lamented how even after being home for a decade, her son has still not found peace. “For so many years, we’ve been going through this,” she said. “When is it gonna end? Am I gonna be alive when it ends?”
Morant recalled staying out of the “nonsense” in prison by remaining focused on one goal: “getting home to [his] family.”
When articles — including an initial one written by the Independent’s Paul Bass, then with the New Haven Advocate — began reporting on the FBI’s investigation into Raucci in the 1990s, Morant started to believe that his conviction would soon be vacated. With each denied appeal and request for a new trial, that belief eroded over time.
“I felt defeated,” recalled Morant, asking himself, “How is this and why is this happening?”
Even so, he remained committed to doing whatever he could to prove his innocence. “My pen and pencil wouldn’t stop moving,” he said. He reached out to the Innocence Project, NBC’s Dateline, and ABC’s 20/20.
In June 2013, Morant’s alleged co-conspirator, Lewis, scored a habeas victory. At the time, he felt excited for Lewis and convinced he would go home next.
In June 2015, Morant’s sentence was modified, and he was released from prison on time served. (Morant’s original sentence was for 70 years; he was released after serving 21 years.)
“Why did you agree to” the sentence modification while also having an ongoing habeas petition? asked Nick Brustin, Morant’s attorney.
“I don’t know if I agreed to it,” Morant replied. His attorney at the time told him that a habeas petition would take many months, while a sentence modification would get him home within weeks. Morant said he figured he could better fight for his innocence at home.
But that meant leaving prison as an ex-felon — even though former State’s Attorney Michael Dearington, who testified during the sentence modification trial, said it was “public information that the police officer involved put [Morant] up to contriving the story.” Dearington was referencing testimony from retired Lt. Michael Sweeney, who said he observed Raucci coercing false testimony out of the state’s key witness against Morant and Lewis.
In 2021, Morant won an absolute pardon from the Connecticut Board of Pardons and Paroles. His criminal record was expunged. “They apologized for what happened to me, and that was great for me to hear,” recalled Morant. He has not heard anything similar from the city.
“How do you feel today that the city and the New Haven Police Department have never taken responsibility for what they did to you?” asked Brustin.
Morant replied, “Shame on them, shame on them.”
While Morant walked out of the courtroom on Tuesday, Judge Nagala called out, “Happy birthday, Mr. Morant.” He thanked her and left."
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.newhavenindependent.org/2026/05/19/morant-details-prisons-toll-questions-city-for-standing-by-corrupt-cop/PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true;
