Rizzo said proponents of the law intended for prosecutors to be in “the driver’s seat” during the hearings and for the attorney general’s office to be only “an active observer,” that was allowed to petition if it felt the law was being abused or if it had its own evidence to bring forward. The Missouri Court of Appeals and the state Supreme Court ruled in Schmitt’s favor. He filed subsequent motions seeking to intervene in the case, including one that argued all judges in the 16th Circuit Court, which includes Jackson County, should be recused from the case because of a perceived bias in Strickland’s favor. Schmitt, a Republican running for Senate who has said he thinks Strickland is guilty, successfully filed an emergency motionto stop the hearing, arguing that his office didn’t have time to prepare. 2, with a second hearing scheduled for the next day, prompting many to believe Strickland was about to be released. The hearing was quickly scheduled for Sept. 28 - the day the law took effect - seeking a hearing for Strickland. Peters Baker became the first prosecutor to use the law when she filed a motion on Aug. He said the law includes safeguards to prevent prosecutors from using it to pick “winners and losers.”ĭID THE NEW LAW WORK AS PLANNED DURING ITS FIRST CASE? Rizzo stressed that the new law sets a high bar for evidence that is necessary before a prisoner can be released. Rizzo said Lamar Johnson’s attorneys are closely following the proceedings and will decide whether to proceed with an evidentiary hearing after Strickland’s case is decided. “The common theme for everyone was that ethically we have an obligation, if we know someone is in jail and they shouldn’t be, to remedy that situation,” Rizzo said. Rizzo said supporters of the law were concerned that the state had no mechanism for prosecutors to help an inmate even when evidence showed the person was innocent.
#Midnight video missouri free
John Rizzo, a Democrat from Kansas City, said that ruling pushed him and other lawmakers to write the law with input from prosecutors, defense attorneys, law enforcement officers and representatives from groups that work to free prisoners.
#Midnight video missouri trial
The court said its ruling wasn’t about whether Johnson was innocent, but was intended to address only whether prosecutors could appeal the dismissal of a motion for a new trial years after an inmate was convicted. But the state Supreme Court in March refused to grant Johnson a new trial after Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt argued that Gardner didn’t have the authority to seek a new trial so many years after the case was decided. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner sought a new trial for Johnson, saying she had a duty to correct past wrongs, including what she believes was Johnson’s wrongful conviction. Johnson has spent 26 years behind bars for a murder he says he didn’t commit. Louis, prompted lawmakers to pass the new law. The case of Lamar Johnson, a longtime inmate in St.
The hearings are held in the county where the inmate was convicted and the decision whether to release the inmate is up to the judge. The law, which was a provision of a larger crime bill, gives prosecutors the authority to seek a hearing if they have new evidence that the convicted person might have been wrongfully convicted. Judge James Welsh ruled Tuesday that Strickland had been wrongfully convicted and ordered him released.
He always maintainedthat he wasn’t he wasn’t at the crime scene, and Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker announced in May that her office’s review of case convinced her that Strickland was telling the truth.Īfter the Missouri Supreme Court in June declined to hear Strickland’s petition for release, Peters Baker used the new state law to seek an evidentiary hearing, which was held in early November. Strickland, 62, was convicted in 1979 of a triple murder in Kansas City. (AP) - A judge’s decision on Tuesday to release longtime inmate Kevin Strickland, of Kansas City, was made possible by a new Missouri law intended to free people who were imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit.