A Missouri man who maintains he was wrongly convicted of murdering his mother more than 20 years ago has been granted parole, his attorneys said Tuesday evening.
Michael Politte, now 37, was convicted of second-degree murder in 2002, four years after he found Rita Politte’s body burning on the floor of their Hopewell home in eastern Missouri, his lawyers have said. He was 14 when she died.
Politte and his sisters maintained he is innocent. Now that he has been granted parole, he will be released April 23 from the Jefferson City Correctional Center.
“But this is not the end. Justice for the Politte family demands Mike’s exoneration and we will continue to litigate in court to overturn his conviction,†his lawyers with the MacArthur Justice Center, the Midwest Innocence Project and Langdon & Emison said in a statement. “His release on parole means he can now continue this fight from home with his sisters.â€
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In court filings, Politte’s attorneys argued he was convicted based in part on discredited fire investigation techniques and an incompetent public defender at trial.
The jurors who convicted Politte have raised concerns about their decision in recent years. Two believe he is innocent and should be freed to correct “this wrong,†while others have said he deserves a new trial based on evidence they never heard.
One of the jurors, Linda Dickerson-Bell, of Bonne Terre, in an affidavit said she learned through an MTV documentary series, which featured Politte’s case, that there was not gasoline on his shoes. She called that evidence the “nail in the coffin†for her at trial.
“After learning about the new evidence, my guilt has only grown,†she wrote. “I now firmly believe ... that we made a terrible mistake.â€
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The criminal justice system makes mistakes, and must be better at correcting them.Â