ST. LOUIS — Christopher Dunn is ready to walk through what he calls a “door of uncertainty.â€
Some day soon, perhaps this week or next, Dunn is going to walk out of the South Central Correctional Center in Licking, Mo., as a free man. In an email to me on Tuesday, he said he had been behind bars for 34 years, two months and four days.
Every one of those days has been an inhumane injustice. That’s what happens when the state keeps an innocent man locked up for nearly his entire adult life.
On Monday, ºüÀêÊÓƵ Circuit Court Judge Jason Sengheiser that was a long time coming. The judge declared Dunn innocent.
“The Circuit Attorney has made a clear and convincing showing of ‘actual innocence’ that undermines the basis for Dunn’s convictions because in light of new evidence, no juror, acting reasonably, would have voted to find Dunn guilty of these crimes beyond a reasonable doubt,†the ruling said.
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That ruling came after a hearing in May sought by Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore. Called a “motion to vacate,†it’s a legal procedure created by the Missouri Legislature in 2021; there were several men and women in prison with solid evidence of their innocence who had run into a legal brick wall trying to find a path to freedom.
Lamar Johnson, another ºüÀêÊÓƵ man who spent almost three decades behind bars for a murder he didn’t commit, was the inspiration for that law. He was the second man in Missouri freed because of it.
“I’m just glad the law is working as intended, despite the attorney general’s opposition,†Johnson emailed me after Dunn’s ruling was announced. “Hopefully, more prosecutors will move to vacate convictions in cases where relief is clearly warranted.â€
About that attorney general. Dunn was still behind bars in Licking as we emailed on Monday and Tuesday because Attorney General Andrew Bailey was fighting to keep him there.
Never mind that the witnesses who put Dunn in prison long ago recanted. Never mind that two judges have issued rulings finding Dunn’s “actual innocence.†Bailey, a Republican running for election in a primary against Will Scharf for the right to face Democrat Elad Gross in November, filed an appeal even though the law that led to Dunn’s pending freedom doesn’t allow such an appeal.
On Wednesday, Sengheiser ordered the warden in Licking to release Dunn by 6 p.m. Dunn’s legal team put out a news release celebrating. But Bailey made a last-minute plea to the Missouri Supreme Court, which halted Dunn’s release until the appeal can be heard.
Talk about cruel and unusual punishment.
But that’s often the nature of the criminal law system in Missouri. Notice I didn’t call it a “justice†system.
Christopher Dunn. Lamar Johnson. Kevin Strickland. Ricky Kidd. Sandra Hemme. Rodney Lincoln. Joseph Amrine. Each one had to fight for years, decades even, all the way to the Missouri Supreme Court to prove their innocence, sometimes more than once.
“We thoroughly proved he was innocent in 2020,†says Kent Gipson, the Kansas City attorney who represented Dunn before the Midwest Innocence Project took over.
Indeed, that’s the year Judge William Hickle ruled that Dunn was innocent. But because the Missouri Supreme Court had said such rulings can only be applied to people on death row, Hickle had to keep Dunn in prison. “It’s a shame he had to spend another 4 years in prison,†Gipson said.
But there he is, waiting on the Missouri Supreme Court to validate the second ruling that he is innocent.
Now 52, with his wife, Kira, ready to help him transition to the outside world, Dunn knows he has to navigate some choppy waters ahead. He’s coming into “a world I haven’t a clue about,†he wrote me.
But he hopes and prays for a happy new beginning. He will come out of prison a different man than the 19-year-old known as “Trap†who was convicted on false testimony by a system that rushed to the wrong sort of accountability. Unfortunately, the rush to wrongful convictions is not met by an equal urgency to right those wrongs when new evidence surfaces.
“Chris’ case is yet another example of how difficult it is to overturn a wrongful conviction in Missouri, even when the prosecutor supports it,†Tricia Rojo Bushnell, one of Dunn’s attorneys with the Midwest Innocence Project, said in a statement.
Eventually, in Dunn’s case, justice will prevail. He will be a free man.
“ºüÀêÊÓƵ, I’m coming home,†Dunn told me in what will hopefully be one of the last emails he sends from prison. “I’m coming home.â€