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Q: “Are you suggesting…even if we find that Mr. Amrine is actually innocent, he should be executed?”
A: “That is correct, your honor.”
- An exchange before the Missouri Supreme Court, and a
on the Mo. AG's record of opposing relief for the wrongfully convicted (1/13)
A: “That is correct, your honor.”
- An exchange before the Missouri Supreme Court, and a
on the Mo. AG's record of opposing relief for the wrongfully convicted (1/13)
The Missouri Attorney General’s office has opposed relief in nearly every wrongful conviction case where it represented the state’s interests over the past 20 years — that’s 27 times in total. Read my investigation, in partnership with @theappeal: https://www.injusticewatch.org/news/2020/missouri-attorney-general-fights-exonerations/ (2/13)
I started taking a look at the office’s record in handling wrongful convictions around the one-year anniversary of the local prosecutor in St. Louis announcing that Lamar Johnson, serving a life term, was wrongfully convicted. Today, Johnson still sits in lockup. (3/13)
One of Johnson’s major obstacles to relief has been the Missouri AG’s office. While the local prosecutor has argued that Johnson deserves a new trial, the AG argued that she has no authority to belatedly correct what could be a wrongful conviction (4/13) https://www.injusticewatch.org/news/2019/st-louis-prosecutor-calls-to-overturn-conviction-based-on-fabricated-police-evidence-undisclosed-witness-payments/
As I reported on Johnson’s case over the past year, I heard again and again that this was business as usual for the attorney general's office. One attorney called the AG's blanket opposition to in potential wrongful conviction cases “obstructionist.” (5/13)
In sifting through two decades of court cases of exonerations, I came across the chilling exchange before the Missouri Supreme Court, where an assistant attorney general acknowledged in 2003 that the state’s argument could indeed result in the execution of an innocent man (6/13)
The former death row inmate’s attorney, Sean O’Brien, said the office’s devotion to the death penalty led them to push for the execution of his innocent client. “It’s time to execute him, innocence be damned,” O’Brien said of the AG’s behavior. (7/13)
Several wrongly convicted people I talked with spoke of the frustration and anguish in dealing with the AG as they tried to win freedom. “Everybody needs to know that the truth doesn’t matter to the attorney general’s office,” Brad Jennings, exonerated in 2018, said. (8/13)
Jennings, who was originally prosecuted by the AG's office, said he didn't even feel at ease when he was released from prison. He thought the AG was going to come back and get him. (9/13)
And he was right. Even after his conviction was tossed, the AG appealed the decision to vacate the murder charges against him, charges that were dropped because forensic evidence had been withheld that indicated Jennings' wife had actually died as a result of suicide. (10/13)
Then, when Jennings sued over his wrongful conviction, he said he sat and watched as the AG's office again and again referred to his wife's death as a murder at the trial before a civil jury. (11/13)
Attorneys told me the office’s tradition of arguing against relief in potential wrongful conviction cases is still underway today. Not just with Lamar Johnson, but with Donald “Doc” Nash, too (12/13).
Nash’s murder conviction was vacated and he was freed from prison in July after battling with the AG, despite information about discredited forensic evidence that was used to secure his conviction. But he still could face a retrial, and hasn’t been formally exonerated. (13/13)
Read the investigation here: https://www.injusticewatch.org/news/2020/missouri-attorney-general-fights-exonerations/
