Missouri’s troubling fight to keep innocent people behind bars

Christopher Dunn leaves the Carnahan Courthouse in St. Louis on Tuesday after more than three decades in prison (photo courtesy of Midwest Innocence Project).

On Tuesday, Christopher Dunn walked out of a courthouse in St. Louis a free man after serving 34 years for a murder he did not commit.

A week prior, Dunn was only 50 feet from freedom, dressed in a suit he picked out for himself, after a St. Louis Circuit Court judge ordered his immediate release. However, he remained incarcerated as Missouri’s Attorney General’s Office fought to keep him in prison. This situation raises critical questions about the attorney general’s commitment to ensuring true justice for all Missourians.

Dunn was convicted in 1991 of first-degree murder based mainly on the testimony of two eyewitnesses, age 12 and 14, who have since recanted, claiming they were coerced. Despite mounting evidence of his innocence and a judge’s order citing “actual innocence,” the Missouri Attorney General’s Office vehemently opposed his release. This opposition is not an isolated incident but part of a troubling pattern of practice in Missouri’s criminal justice landscape.

The case of Sandra Hemme highlights the same issue. Hemme was released after 43 years in prison when her conviction for a deadly stabbing was overturned. The Missouri Attorney General’s Office repeatedly challenged her release, leading to a judge reprimanding the office for instructing prison officials to defy court orders. Judge Ryan Horsman criticized the Missouri Attorney General’s Office for calling the warden and telling prison officials not to release Hemme after he had ordered her to be freed on her own recognizance.

In Dunn’s case, the Missouri Attorney General’s Office attempted to file an appeal. The Missouri Supreme Court ultimately ruled that while the circuit court could cancel Dunn’s conviction, it couldn’t let him go without giving prosecutors the chance to retry him. St. Louis Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore then dropped the charges against Dunn, resulting in his immediate release.

This resistance from Missouri’s attorney general is nothing new.

In 2003, the Missouri Attorney General’s Office, under the direction of Democrat Jay Nixon, argued that Joe Amrine, a man fighting for his innocence, should be executed in the name of finality. When asked by state Supreme Court Justice Laura Denvir Stith if Amrine should be executed even if found actually innocent, Assistant Attorney General Frank Jung affirmed that stance.

Amrine was eventually exonerated and released.

The Attorney General’s Office must focus on upholding justice, not merely securing and maintaining convictions. Upholding justice means ensuring the innocent are freed and the actual perpetrators are held accountable. When people are wrongly convicted, there is no justice for the original victims, whose cases remain unsolved. True justice for victims includes acknowledging judicial errors and recognizing that those wrongfully imprisoned are victims, too.

These types of legal gymnastics prove even more dire for people like Marcellus Williams, who is scheduled to be executed on Sept. 24. The St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney reviewed new DNA evidence and filed a motion to vacate Williams’s conviction, believing the results proved by clear and convincing evidence that Williams did not commit the crime that put him on death row.

The Missouri Attorney General’s Office must ensure justice for all Missourians. Clinging to convictions in the face of clear evidence of innocence undermines the duty of the office. It prioritizes past decisions over present truths, erodes public trust in the justice system, and fails to correct miscarriages of justice.

Achieving justice means more than upholding convictions. It means righting wrongs and ensuring that the wrongly incarcerated and victims of unsolved cases see true justice.