The case of Christopher Dunn marks the second time Attorney General Andrew Bailey has appealed the swift release of a person whose murder conviction was overturned.
For more than 30 years, Christopher Dunn has been incarcerated in Missouri, accused of a murder he insisted he did not commit. Freedom seemed within his grasp when a circuit judge overturned his conviction and ordered for his release Wednesday — only to be overruled when the state Supreme Court granted the attorney general’s request for a stay.
The legal showdown over Dunn’s release marks the second time in a matter of weeks that Missouri’s Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey has fought a court order to release an inmate who was found to be wrongly convicted.
Last month, Sandra Hemme, 64, the longest-held wrongly incarcerated woman known in the U.S., had her conviction overturned, only to have Bailey appeal her release, keeping her behind bars. Ultimately, she was released July 19 after a judge threatened to hold the attorney general’s office in contempt of court.
I’m not sure if this is the same case I read about recently, but it was something along the lines of there being some other much more minor conviction and the AG is arguing that the thirty years spent on the wrongful conviction shouldn’t count towards the time given for the other conviction.
I’d suppose the real motivation is hiding from the enormous civil lawsuits that will be coming in.