N.O. crime-camera evidence leads to first conviction

Score one, finally, for the New Orleans crime camera program.

Often maligned for failing to live up to expectations since Mayor Ray Nagin approved them in 2004, the $6 million investment that installed 250 cameras across the city to combat crime paid off for prosecutors at trial this week. Camera images were critical to sending a drug dealer off to prison for hawking ecstasy tablets on a street corner last year and then trying to resist arrest.

The conviction marked the first time prosecutors were able to use a crime camera image in court, District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro said.

"Crime cameras can aid in the prosecution of violent criminals and drug dealers," the DA said in a statement Thursday. "However, because of cameras' lack of reliability, to date they have only provided evidence in a single case."

The case was against Jamal Howard, 24, who went to trial Tuesday at Criminal District Court, where prosecutors played the camera's footage on a large monitor for the jury.

The jury watched in "real time," prosecutors said, in July 2008 as Howard was caught red-handed by cops dispatched to the corner of Dumaine and North Broad streets by a First District police officer watching the drug deal go down via the camera.

After about 20 minutes of deliberations, the jury returned a unanimous verdict of guilty on charges of dealing ecstasy and possession of the illegal tablets.

Judge Ben Willard also found Howard guilty of resisting arrest and battery of a police officer, both misdemeanors that don't allow for jury trials. Those crimes were also captured by the camera.

Wearing a bright orange T-shirt, Howard can be seen struggling with officers for several minutes. Howard was pepper-sprayed yet continued to scrap with cops.

Howard sold six tablets to a man, who also is caught on the tape and pleaded guilty earlier this year. The tape also shows a small crowd gathering around the suspects as police try to make arrests, and Howard throws a bag to the ground....