World Courant
ST. LOUIS — ST. LOUIS (AP) — Christopher Dunn spent 33 years in jail for a homicide he claimed from the beginning he did not commit. A listening to this week will decide whether or not he must be launched.
St. Louis prosecutors at the moment are satisfied Dunn is telling the reality, however attorneys for the Missouri legal professional normal disagree and can argue to maintain him behind bars. Dunn, 52, is serving a life sentence with out parole on the state jail in Locking, Missouri, however is anticipated to attend the listening to earlier than Choose Jason Sengheiser that begins Tuesday.
The listening to follows a movement filed in February by St. Louis Circuit Lawyer Gabe Gore. A Missouri regulation handed in 2021 permits prosecutors to request hearings in circumstances the place they imagine there’s proof of a wrongful conviction.
Dunn was convicted of first-degree homicide within the 1990 demise of 15-year-old Ricco Rogers, primarily based largely on the testimony of two boys who stated they witnessed the taking pictures. The witnesses, aged 12 and 14 on the time, later recanted, claiming they’d been coerced by police and prosecutors.
In Could 2023, then St. Louis Circuit Lawyer Kim Gardner filed a movement to overturn Dunn’s sentence. However Gardner resigned days later, and after his appointment by Governor Mike Parson, Gore wished to conduct his personal investigation. Gore introduced in February that he would search to overturn the conviction.
Dunn, who’s black, was 18 when Rogers was shot and killed the evening of Could 18, 1990. There was no bodily proof linking Dunn to the crime, however the two boys instructed police on the time that they noticed Dunn standing within the jail aisle. home subsequent door simply minutes earlier than photographs rang out.
Rogers and the 2 boys ran once they heard the photographs, however Roger was fatally shot, in accordance with courtroom data.
A decide has beforehand heard Dunn’s innocence case.
At a 2020 listening to, Choose William Hickle agreed {that a} jury would doubtless discover Dunn not responsible primarily based on new proof. However Hickle declined to exonerate Dunn, citing a 2016 Missouri Supreme Courtroom ruling that solely demise row inmates — and never these like Dunn who’re sentenced to life in jail with out the potential for parole — have a “freestanding ‘ may make a declare of precise innocence.
The 2021 regulation resulted within the launch of two males who each spent many years in jail.
In 2021, Kevin Strickland was launched after greater than 40 years behind bars for 3 murders in Kansas Metropolis, after a decide dominated he was wrongly convicted in 1979.
Final February, a St. Louis decide overturned the conviction of Lamar Johnson, who spent almost 28 years in jail for a homicide he all the time stated he did not commit. At a listening to in December 2022, one other man testified that it was he – not Johnson – who joined a second man within the killing. A witness testified that police “bullied” him into implicating Johnson. And Johnson’s then-girlfriend had testified that they had been collectively that evening.
A courtroom date continues to be pending in one other case difficult a Missouri homicide conviction for a person who was almost executed for the crime.
St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell filed a movement in January to overturn the conviction of Marcellus Williams, who narrowly escaped deadly injection seven years in the past for the 1998 deadly stabbing of Lisha Gayle. Bell’s movement stated three specialists decided Williams’ DNA was not on the deal with of the butcher knife used within the killing.
Listening to to find out whether or not a Missouri man who has been in jail for 33 years was wrongly convicted
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