Missouri Supreme Court Stops Release of Exonerated Christopher Dunn

A judge had finally ruled two days earlier on what Dunn had always maintained: he had been wrongly convicted of murder in 1990.

But as the Missouri Department of Corrections finalized its release paperwork Wednesday,, The director received the appeal. The State Supreme Court had stopped the release order after the state attorney general appealed to keep Dunn in prison.

“It was probably the highest and lowest moment I can remember in my entire life,” said Kira Dunn, who used her saved miles to fly from California to witness her husband’s release. “We were completely stunned.”

“He was literally 15 metres from freedom,” she added.

On Monday, St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Jason Sengheiser ruled that Dunn, 52, was wrongfully convicted of killing 15-year-old Ricco Rogers and ordered his release Wednesday night.

The judge wrote that St. Louis prosecutor Gabe Gore had proven Dunn’s “actual innocence” after two witnesses who identified Dunn as the killer in 1990 later recanted as adults, saying they had been coerced by police into testifying.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican, argued that the recantations were coerced and that Dunn was actually guilty. Sengheiser rejected that argument, writing in his decision that “the attorney general has provided no evidence to support these allegations.”

Hours after that decision, Bailey appealed. Just before the deadline for Dunn’s release on Wednesday, the state’s highest court stayed his release to let the appeals process play out.

That court could rule on the case and release Dunn as early as next week.

In the meantime, he had swapped his civilian clothes for another prison jumpsuit, his wife said.

“He had gotten rid of all his belongings at the prison,” Kira Dunn said. “We are very hurt and, frankly, we don’t understand why the person who is charged with defending the well-being of Missourians would do this.”

Dunn has maintained his innocence for decades. In 2020, another judge ruled that a jury would likely find him not guilty based on new evidence, but said he could not exonerate Dunn because only people on death row in Missouri were eligible for that decision.

The state then passed a law in 2021 expanding the criteria for admission to new hearings, allowing prosecutors to bring potential wrongful conviction cases to trial when new evidence emerges.

In February of this year, Gore, the St. Louis district attorney, did just that, filing a motion to overturn the guilty verdict.

Court documents show that Bailey, the state attorney general, advised the Department of Corrections to wait until after the appeal to release Dunn.

“Throughout the appeals process, multiple courts have upheld Christopher Dunn’s murder conviction,” Bailey spokeswoman Madeline Sieren said in an email. “We will always fight for the rule of law and justice for victims.”

Sieren declined to comment further on the matter, citing the ongoing litigation.

Dunn’s case is the second time in just weeks that Bailey has sought to appeal an overturned conviction to the state’s highest court.

After another judge on June 14 overturned Sandra Hemme’s conviction for a fatal 1980 stabbing, Bailey’s office also asked prison officials not to release the 64-year-old woman while she appealed. The Missouri Supreme Court upheld the overturned decision, and the judge in that case said last week that if Hemme was not released, Bailey would have to appear in court himself. She was released the same day.

Charles Zug, a political science professor at the University of Missouri, noted that Bailey did not provide much legal justification for not releasing Dunn. He said there could be a political reason.

Bailey faces a challenge to his right from attorney Will Scharf, who represented Donald Trump. The former president has yet to endorse the race, but Zug noted that if he did, it could swing the primary. Zug said he interprets Bailey’s move as an attempt to bolster his “law and order” bona fides with national party officials and garner their support.

“He seems to be throwing spaghetti at the wall to try to show as much as possible to national Republicans that he is conservative enough,” Zug said. “Unfortunately, Dunn has ended up as a chess piece here.”

On Thursday, Dunn’s attorneys argued in a brief filed with the Missouri Supreme Court that Bailey has no right to appeal the judge’s decision and that only the prosecutor who fought for Dunn’s release can do so.

“This standoff must stop,” they wrote.

Dunn’s mother, sisters and nephew had joined his wife, Kira, in Missouri to see Dunn released from prison Wednesday. When they learned it wasn’t happening, Kira went inside to talk to the warden, who let her see her husband.

Dunn’s eyes had gone blank, she said. They held hands. She told him it was a bump in the road, that she would be back next week, waiting for him outside the jail.

“We’ve been waiting for a long, long time,” she said. “I think we’re going to continue to wait.”