STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
A Missouri prison refused to release a man after a court overturned his murder conviction. Christopher Dunn has been in prison for more than 30 years. The judge said he should be released immediately, which the state declined to do after the state attorney general promised to appeal. There was a dayslong standoff. St. Louis Public Radio's Lacretia Wimbley is covering this story. Good morning.
LACRETIA WIMBLEY, BYLINE: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: What's the background to this case, for people outside Missouri?
WIMBLEY: Sure. Well, Christopher Dunn was convicted in a 1990 fatal shooting of 15-year-old Ricco Rogers. And he was largely convicted on the testimony of two boys, who were 12 and 14 years old at the time, but both of them later recanted their stories. Now, back in February, the St. Louis circuit attorney asked the court to vacate Dunn's conviction, and St. Louis' circuit judge officially overturned his conviction early last week. But his legal team, the Midwest Innocence Project, says that Dunn should be released immediately after he served over three decades for a crime that he didn't commit.
INSKEEP: OK. So the order is, let this man go. What happened instead?
WIMBLEY: Right. It's been a legal battle ever since. A day after overturning the conviction, the judge gave an emergency order for Dunn to be released by 6 p.m. that evening or the prison would be held in contempt of court. And that's when the attorney general went to the Supreme Court for help. But they didn't do what the judge said. Because they hadn't - the department of corrections hadn't followed the judge's orders for those nearly two days, Dunn remained in prison until the judge gave that deadline. And then Dunn had changed into his civilian clothes and was right at the door when he was about to be freed on that Wednesday when the Supreme Court order came down at the last minute and he had to turn around.
INSKEEP: Wait a minute. Did he actually reach his family?
WIMBLEY: He did not. They did see him. They were ready and willing to hug him and love on him, but he - and he was ready to do the same, but he had to turn around. So they didn't get to touch, but they saw each other.
INSKEEP: OK. So the state Supreme Court finally says he remains in prison at the request of the attorney general. Is it unusual that the state attorney general would make a move like this?
WIMBLEY: No. Earlier this month, Attorney General Andrew Bailey - he also fought the release of now-former prisoner Sandra Hemme, and her sentence was also overturned after she was incarcerated for more than four decades.
INSKEEP: OK. So now he does it again. What's his legal argument?
WIMBLEY: Well, Bailey's legal argument is that - essentially, his main focus is that he's maintaining justice for the victims. But in both Hemmes' case and Dunn's case, the AG says that several courts have affirmed the convictions throughout the appeals process, and so he's trying to maintain what the original convictions were.
INSKEEP: What do you hear from Christopher Dunn and from his family?
WIMBLEY: Well, Dunn spoke with one of my colleagues, Danny Wicentowski, a few months ago. And at that time, he said he'd been keeping a positive perspective throughout this process.
CHRISTOPHER DUNN: I can wake up and be bitter if I wanted to. But what would it get me - out of the hole? It would not get me back out in society. So I have to focus on what is the greater picture now, and that's to visualize myself with my family.
WIMBLEY: And his wife, Kira Dunn, says that it was sheer and pointless cruelty for her husband to reach the prison door and then be pulled back. But at this point, it's still up in the air when or if Christopher Dunn will be released.
INSKEEP: Lacretia Wimbley of St. Louis Public Radio. Thanks so much.
WIMBLEY: You're welcome.
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