spent over 30 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Then a judge overturned his murder conviction and ordered for his release on Wednesday. But just when Dunn’s seemed imminent, Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed an appeal, and the Missouri Supreme Court granted his request, blocking Dunn’s release from .
This is the second time in a matter of weeks that Bailey has intervened and fought against an inmate’s release from prison who was found to be . In June, Bailey appealed the release of Sandra Hemme, the longest-held wrongly incarcerated woman known in the U.S.
, after her conviction was overturned. Hemme was eventually released on July 19th after a judge “threatened to hold the attorney general’s office in contempt of court.” Dunn found out about this reversal of fate while he was signing release paperwork and his wife was already “en route to pick him up.
” In a statement, Dunn’s , Kira Dunn, said, “We are devastated and so confused as to why the Missouri Supreme entertained the Attorney General’s improper intrusion into a matter already settled by a judge. Chris was literally a few steps away from freedom when the call came..
.This is unimaginably cruel treatment of a proven innocent person. It is torture.
It is pointless. It is a perversion of what justice should be in Missouri.” Dunn’s sentence stemmed from a 1990 shooting over the death of 15-year-old Ricco Rogers.
Even though the prosecution lacked any physical evidence that linked Dunn to that fatal shooting, “he was convicted of first-degree murder, based largely on the testimony of two young witnesses who said they saw the shooting,” NBC News reports. Of note, his mother and sister provided an for Dunn, stating that he was with them at home on the night in question talking on the phone and watching television. In addition, the 12- and 14-year-old witnesses would later recant their testimony, claiming coercion at the hands of police and prosecution.
Despite these facts, Dunn received a life sentence in prison “without the possibility of parole.” According to the , St. Louis Circuit Judge Jason Sengheiser made the decision to release Dunn after overturning his murder conviction Monday, citing “a clear and convincing showing of ‘actual innocence’ that undermines the basis for Dunn’s convictions, because in light of new evidence, no juror, acting reasonably, would have voted to find Dunn guilty of these crimes beyond a reasonable doubt.
” However, this decision was halted after the state declined his release following the Attorney General and state supreme court legally interceded. Wednesday, the Gabe Gore, St. Louis Circuit Attorney, filed a motion requesting that the order Dunn’s release immediately, writing “The attorney general cannot unilaterally decide to ignore this court’s order.
” Tricia Rojo Bushnell, executive director of the and the attorney representing Dunn said, “It shouldn’t be this hard.”.
