Len Davis is a former New Orleanspolice officer. He was convicted of depriving civil rights through murder by conspiring with an assassin to kill a local resident.
Police career
Davis was known in the community as "Robocop" due to his large size and the "Desire terrorist" due to his aggressive policing style. He had a reputation as both a good and bad cop. He had been suspended six times and received 20 complaints between 1987 and 1992 while subsequently receiving the department's Medal of Merit in 1993. Due to significant corruption within the New Orleans police department, the FBI had set up a sting in 1994, catching Davis in a cocaine protection operation. Davis had come to the attention of federal investigators for extorting bribes and offering protection to a drug dealer who was a federal informant. Nine other police officers, including two who would later testify against Davis, were indicted in the cocaine operation. Twenty additional officers were implicated in the scheme but the investigation had to be aborted with the murder of Kim Groves. Davis would later be convicted of additional drug-related charges while the other officers pleaded guilty.
Murder of Kim Groves
In 1994, Davis beat a young man in New Orleans, mistaking him for a suspect in a police officer's shooting. Kim Groves, a 32-year old local resident and mother of three young children, witnessed the assault and filed a complaint with the New Orleans police department. Davis conspired with a local drug dealer, Paul Hardy, to retaliate. Hardy shot and killed her on October 14, 1994, less than one day after she filed the complaint. A third man, Damon Causey, hid the murder weapon, a 9 mm pistol.
Trial and conviction
Davis was convicted in 1996 on two federal civil rights charges for directing Hardy to murder Groves and for witness tampering. Davis was initially sentenced to death on April 26, 1996. The 5th Circuit, however, reversed his death sentence when his conviction for witness tampering was thrown out. A subsequent jury also chose the death penalty for Davis, and he was formally sentenced to death again on October 27, 2005. Davis is currently on federal death row and is imprisoned in United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute, Indiana. Hardy was convicted of conspiracy to violate Groves' civil rights and of witness tampering. The witness tampering conviction would be later overturned. He was initially sentenced to death, but in 2011 his sentence was commuted to life when he was found by a judge to be mentally retarded. Causey was convicted of federal conspiracy charges and violating Groves' civil rights. He was sentenced to life imprisonment after rejecting a plea bargain that instead would have sentenced him to prison for six to nine years. His conviction was upheld on appeal.
Aftermath and later developments
In 2018, the city of New Orleans settled a lawsuit with Groves' three children in the sum of $1.5 million.
