SUB-HEADING: "Two St. Louis prosecutors say Christopher Dunn is innocent. He’s still in prison."
GIST: "For Christopher Dunn, the Feb. 7 announcement by St. Louis Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore was a moment of deja vu. Less than a year had passed since May 15, 2023, when then-Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner announced that she would file a motion to vacate Dunn’s 1991 murder conviction.
Days later, however, Gardner resigned her position with an office in crisis — leaving Dunn’s path to freedom in limbo. He could do nothing but wait for St. Louis’ new circuit attorney to look at his case for innocence.
“I've been down this road before,” Dunn said. He spoke to St. Louis on the Air days after Gore announced the filing of a new motion to vacate Dunn’s conviction.
Like Gardner, Gore found the conviction rested entirely on witness testimony. Both witnesses, who were 12 and 14 at the time of the killing, later recanted their claims that an 18-year-old Dunn was the shooter behind the 1990 killing of Ricco Rogers.
In 2020, Texas County Circuit Judge William E. Hickle stated about the case, “This court does not believe that any jury would now convict Christopher Dunn under these facts.”
Yet, Dunn remains behind bars. Although Gore’s motion follows the same legal process that freed Lamar Johnson and Kevin Strickland, Dunn said he has to be protective of his expectations.
“I still have to live in prison, with the uncertainty that I may possibly die in prison,” he noted. “We just got over one of the largest hurdles. We haven't reached the finish line yet.”
On Wednesday’s St. Louis on the Air, Dunn discussed his yearslong efforts to prove his innocence and reflected on the unusual series of events that’s led two St. Louis prosecutors and a Missouri judge to support his freedom. The show also featured a conversation with Dunn’s wife, Kira Dunn, and Rachel Wester, managing attorney for the Midwest Innocence Project.
To hear more from Christopher Dunn, and how his wife, Kira, and supporters are working to secure his freedom, listen to St. Louis on the Air on Apple Podcast, Spotify or Google Podcast or by clicking the play button below."
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.stlpr.org/show/st-louis-on-the-air/2024-03-06/two-st-louis-prosecutors-say-christopher-dunn-is-innocent-hes-still-in-prisonPUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater's attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, "Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it's the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.
https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-12348801
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MORE VALUABLE WORDS: "As a former public defender, Texas' refusal to delay Ivan Cantu's execution to evaluate new evidence is deeply worrying for the state of our legal system. There should be no room for doubt in a death penalty case. The facts surrounding Cantu's execution should haunt all of us."
