ST. LOUIS — After 33 years of waiting, Christopher Dunn is getting another day in court.
Dunn, 52, has maintained his innocence for more than three decades in the 1990 murder of 15-year-old Ricco Rogers in the city’s Wells-Goodfellow neighborhood.
And beginning Tuesday, a cadre of attorneys, including Ƶ Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore, are expected to argue that a city judge should vacate Dunn’s conviction and release him from prison.
Gore’s office in February arguing that Dunn had an alibi for the night of the shooting and that the state’s key evidence — eyewitness testimony from a 12-year-old and a 14-year-old — was wrong.
The two witnesses have recanted their testimony, and Gore said his office found experts who could further debunk their previous statements.
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On the other side of the courtroom will be lawyers from Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s office, who are expected to say that Dunn’s conviction was sound.
Lawyers for the attorney general’s office said in a hearing last week they planned to call an expert witness to talk about how people can be pressured in jail or prison to falsely recant testimony.
The hearing is expected to begin Tuesday and last two days. The judge will then take the matter under consideration and issue his findings at a later date.
Dunn’s case marks the first time Gore has sought to free someone following a wrongful conviction claim. His predecessor, Kimberly M. Gardner, won the release of Lamar Johnson last year after he spent nearly three decades in prison for a murder he did not commit.
In addition to reviewing Dunn’s case, Gore revived the office’s conviction integrity unit, which was tasked with reviewing wrongful conviction claims. In February, an office spokeswoman said the unit was handling roughly 40 cases, and last week, the office confirmed it was reviewing the case of Fredrico Lowe-Bey, who has claimed his innocence in a 1988 rape conviction.
Dunn has been in jail since 1990, when police said he shot Rogers just before midnight on May 18.
Police arrived at Dunn’s home at 2 a.m. to arrest him. The following year, he was convicted of first-degree murder, first-degree assault and armed criminal action. The trial lasted a day and a half, and the jury deliberated for just 42 minutes. He was later sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Dunn maintained his innocence in Rogers’ death. The two key witnesses recanted, and he filed multiple appeals.
In 2020, a Missouri circuit judge wrote in response to Dunn’s case that “this court does not believe that any jury would now convict Christopher Dunn under these facts,” but there was no mechanism by which to free him.
State lawmakers passed a bill the following year allowing local prosecutors to file a motion to vacate a wrongful conviction, making it possible for Gardner to file a motion last year to free Dunn. It was her final act before resigning from office.
Gore withdrew Gardner’s motion the day after he was named the city’s top prosecutor, and he appointed former state appeals court Judge Booker Shaw to help review the case.
In February, he filed a motion of his own seeking to vacate the conviction.