Black leaders in St. Louis say politics and racism are keeping wrongly convicted man behind bars

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Leaders of the Missouri NAACP and other organizations said Tuesday that politics and racism are behind the state attorney general’s effort to keep Christopher Dunn behind bars, more than a week after a judge overturned his murder conviction from 34 years ago.

State NAACP President Nimrod Chapel Jr. said at a news conference that Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey “superseded his jurisdiction and authority” in appealing Circuit Judge Jason Sengheiser’s July 21 ruling. Sengheiser not only tossed out the decadesold conviction, citing evidence of “actual innocence,” but ordered the state to immediately release Dunn.

But when Bailey appealed, the Missouri Department of Corrections refused to release Dunn until the case played out. It is now in the hands of the Missouri Supreme Court. It’s uncertain when the court will rule, or when Dunn, 52, will be freed.

Another speaker at the news conference, the Rev. Darryl Gray, accused Bailey of “political posturing and political grandstanding” ahead of the Aug. 6 Republican primary, where he faces opposition from Will Scharf, an attorney for former President Donald Trump.

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Zaki Baruti of the Universal African People’s Organization said the treatment of Dunn is driven by the fact that he is Black.

“What’s happening now is another form of lynching,” Baruti said.

Bailey’s office, in a statement, said the effort to keep Dunn in prison was warranted.

“Throughout the appeals process, multiple courts have affirmed Christopher Dunn’s murder conviction,” the statement read. “We will always fight for the rule of law and to obtain justice for victims.”

Dunn was 18 in 1990 when 15-year-old Ricco Rogers was killed. Testimony from a 12-year-old and a 14-year-old at the scene of the shooting was key to convicting Dunn of first-degree murder. Both later recanted their testimony, saying they had been coerced by police and prosecutors.

At an evidentiary hearing in 2020, another judge agreed that a jury would likely find Dunn not guilty based on new evidence. But that judge, William Hickle, declined to exonerate Dunn, citing a 2016 Missouri Supreme Court ruling that only death row inmates — not those like Dunn, who was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole — could make a “freestanding” claim of actual innocence.

A 2021 law now allows prosecutors to seek court hearings in cases with new evidence of a wrongful conviction. St. Louis Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore sought the hearing on behalf of Dunn and Sengheiser heard testimony in May.

Another case — a Black inmate — goes before another judge Aug. 21, with life-or-death consequences.

Marcellus Williams is on death row for the stabbing death of a St. Louis County woman in 1998. His execution is scheduled for Sept. 24, unless his conviction is overturned. St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell requested the hearing. His motion said three experts determined that Williams’ DNA was not on the handle of the butcher knife used in the killing.

Bailey’s office also will oppose overturning Williams’ conviction.

But another inmate who Bailey sought to keep imprisoned after a conviction was overturned was white.

Sandra Hemme, 64, spent 43 years in prison for the fatal stabbing of a woman in St. Joseph in 1980. A judge on June 14 cited evidence of “actual innocence” and overturned her conviction. She had been the longest held wrongly incarcerated woman known in the U.S., according to the National Innocence Project, which worked to free Hemme.

Appeals by Bailey — all the way up to the Missouri Supreme Court — kept Hemme imprisoned at the Chillicothe Correctional Center for several days, until a judge on July 19 ordered her immediate release and threatened Bailey with possible contempt of court charges. Hemme was released later that day.