William Stovall plotted to blast his way out of a state prison in 1991 and was convicted of 10 crimes for it.
TRENTON -- An inmate convicted of plotting to shoot and blast his way out of New Jersey State Prison in Trenton 25 years ago has lost an appeal on the case that was filed many years after his conviction.
William Stovall An appeals court on Wednesday affirmed a lower court's 2012 decision to deny William Stovall a post-conviction relief hearing on his case, which dates to 1991.
Stovall, now 63 and incarcerated at East Jersey State Prison in Rahway, was convicted in 1994 in Mercer County of 10 crimes for a 1991 plot to break out of the Trenton prison.
In March 1991, after prison investigators learned of the escape plans, an undercover officer met with Stovall at the prison and arrangements were made for the accomplice to buy three guns and 4 pounds of plastic explosives from another officer, news accounts say.
The sale was made at Quaker Bridge Mall in Lawrence, but the guns were inoperative the explosives were dummies and the accomplice was apprehended a short time later and charged.
Stovall was convicted at trial was sentenced to another 30 years behind bars. His accomplice took a plea deal for five years.
At the time, Stovall was already is serving a 75-year prison term for several charges and had escaped from jails and prisons in Pennsylvania and New Jersey three times from 1980 to 1984, news accounts show.
In one, Stovall pulled a Derringer pistol from his hair while being taken to a medical appointment in downtown Trenton in 1981. He put the pistol to the head of a Mercer sheriff's officer's and pulled the trigger, but it jammed. He was arrested later in the day.
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Stovall was also linked to the group Afrikan National Ujamaa, a spinoff of the Black Liberation Army, officials said. He was such a security risk that a judge ordered him shackled and cuffed during the course of his 1994 trial.
In 1997, Stovall filed a post-conviction relief appeal in Mercer County by himself, and his lawyer later filed a brief in the petition. But when the lawyer withdrew from the case, the petition stayed alive, the appeals decision says.
When Stovall got a new lawyer, a new brief was filed in 2011, but the Mercer court denied giving him a hearing in 2012.
Stovall argued five points in the appeal, including ineffective counsel and the fact that his original lawyer did not object to inmate witnesses testifying at his trial in prison garb while shackled.
The appeals court said the inmates' incarceration was the focal point of their testimony. "Defendant's argument that the jury might have reached a different result if these two witnesses had testified in plain clothes and without shackles clearly lacks merit.," the appeals court said. All other arguments were also rejected.
Stovall has a lengthy criminal record and has been in and our of prisons and jails since 1980, state records show. He is next eligible for parole in 2018.
Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@kevintshea. Find The Times of Trenton on Facebook.