A Missouri man has been in jail for 33 years. A brand new listening to may decide if he was wrongfully convicted.

A listening to this week will decide if Missouri inmate Christopher Dunn ought to go free after spending greater than three many years in jail for a homicide that he has all the time mentioned he didn’t commit. Dunn’s conviction and life sentence with out parole hinged on the testimonies of two witnesses — a preteen and a younger teenager — who’ve since admitted to mendacity through the trial.

St. Louis prosecutors are actually satisfied Dunn is telling the reality, however attorneys for the Missouri Lawyer Normal’s Workplace disagree and can argue for maintaining him behind bars. Dunn, 52, is serving a sentence of life with out parole on the state jail in Locking, Missouri, however is anticipated to attend the listening to earlier than Decide Jason Sengheiser that begins Tuesday.

The listening to follows a movement filed in February by St. Louis Circuit Lawyer Gabe Gore. A Missouri regulation adopted in 2021 permits prosecutors to request hearings in instances the place they consider there’s proof of a wrongful conviction.

Dunn was convicted of first-degree homicide within the demise of 15-year-old Ricco Rogers in 1990, based mostly largely on the testimony of two boys who mentioned they witnessed the capturing. The state’s eyewitnesses, ages 12 and 14 on the time, later recanted, claiming they have been coerced by police and prosecutors.

“I could not inform you who Ricco Rogers was to avoid wasting my life,” Dunn instructed CBS Information and “48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty in a “CBS Mornings” section final November. He launched himself as “an harmless man who has been in jail for a criminal offense which I did not commit, who’s afraid I’d die in jail.”

Dunn, who at that time had suffered three coronary heart assaults whereas incarcerated, mentioned he was “attempting to determine what justice is in Missouri.” 

Dunn has mentioned that he was residence together with his mom when Rogers was killed. Even though there was no proof to help the testimonies of these two teenagers who claimed they witnessed Rogers’ homicide, Dunn was convicted of the crime throughout a swift trial and has now been imprisoned for 33 years.

Moriarty attributed Dunn’s ongoing incarceration to a quirk in Missouri regulation.

“If Dunn had been on demise row, he’d be out by now. However he is serving life in jail with out parole, which is sort of the identical factor,” Moriarty mentioned. “However in Missouri, lifers aren’t entitled to innocence claims, which leaves his destiny within the arms of a prosecutor whose workplace put him behind bars within the first place.”

Courtroom filings present the 2 predominant witnesses in Dunn’s trial recanted their testimonies, in sworn affidavits the place every admitting to perjury, in 2005 and 2015, respectively. However Dunn remained in jail.

In Might 2023, then-St. Louis Circuit Lawyer Kim Gardner filed a movement to vacate Dunn’s sentence. However Gardner resigned days later, and after his appointment by Gov. Mike Parson, Gore wished to conduct his personal investigation. Gore introduced in February that he would search to overturn the conviction.

Dunn, who’s Black, was 18 when Rogers was shot to demise on the night time of Might 18, 1990. No bodily proof linked Dunn to the crime however the two boys instructed police on the time that they noticed Dunn standing within the gangway of the home subsequent door, simply minutes earlier than photographs rang out.

Rogers and the 2 boys ran after they heard the photographs, however Roger was fatally struck, in line with courtroom information.

A choose has heard Dunn’s innocence case earlier than.

At an evidentiary listening to in 2020, Decide William Hickle agreed {that a} jury would possible discover Dunn not responsible based mostly on new proof. However Hickle declined to exonerate Dunn, citing a 2016 Missouri Supreme Courtroom ruling that solely demise row inmates — not these like Dunn sentenced to life in jail with out the potential for parole — may make a “freestanding” declare of precise innocence.

The 2021 regulation has resulted within the the discharge of two males who each spent many years in jail.

In 2021, Kevin Strickland was freed after greater than 40 years behind bars for 3 killings in Kansas Metropolis after a choose dominated that he had been wrongfully convicted in 1979.

Final February, a St. Louis choose overturned the conviction of Lamar Johnson, who spent almost 28 years in jail for a killing he all the time mentioned he did not commit. At a listening to in December 2022, one other man testified that it was he — not Johnson — who joined a second man within the killing. A witness testified that police had “bullied” him into implicating Johnson. And Johnson’s girlfriend on the time had testified that they have been collectively that night time.

A listening to date remains to be pending in one other case wherein a Missouri homicide conviction is being challenged for a person who was almost executed for the crime.

St. Louis County Prosecuting Lawyer Wesley Bell filed a movement in January to vacate the conviction of Marcellus Williams, who narrowly escaped deadly injection seven years in the past for the deadly stabbing of Lisha Gayle in 1998. Bell’s movement mentioned three consultants have decided that Williams’ DNA was not on the deal with of the butcher knife used within the killing.