Kevin Strickland case: Public, official comments show divide on guilt or innocence
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Kevin Strickland innocence claim
Kevin Strickland, 62, has spent the last 40-plus years in prison for a 1978 triple murder he says he did not commit. His lawyers, local prosecutors and Kansas City officials have urged he be released, but the Missouri Attorney General’s Office maintains he’s guilty.
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The Missouri Attorney General’s Office on Monday argued that Kevin Strickland is guilty in the 1978 triple homicide for which he remains in prison.
The Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office disagrees, contending he has spent the last 40 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Prosecutors and other local officials have called for Strickland’s exoneration.
Here’s what public figures and officials have said about his proclaimed innocence.
Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker:
“My job is to protect the innocent. Today my job is to apologize. It is important to recognize when the system has made wrongs. And what we did in this case was wrong. To Mr. Strickland, I am profoundly sorry. I am profoundly sorry for the harm that has come to you. I am sorry for this mistake made by this system.”
Gov. Mike Parson:
“I am not convinced that I’m willing to put other people at risk if you’re not right,” the Republican governor and former Polk County sheriff told a television station, adding that “no one has been proven innocent here in a court of law, is the bottom line.”
Mayor Quinton Lucas:
“We need to make sure that we cure those failures in the future and this does relate to the fact that since the beginning of juries, since the beginning of the legal system really, witness identifications used to convict people have disproportionately done a few things, disproportionately convicted black men, disproportionately lead to unfair outcomes for those who cannot afford good counsel, and I think we are seeing a travesty in the fact that Kevin Strickland still sits in a Missouri prison today.”
Nathan Garrett, former member of the Board of Police Commissioners:
Garrett, while on the police board, told prosecutors he found Strickland’s conviction “alarming.” He said the Kansas City Police Department has “no plans to oppose or in any manner hinder Mr. Strickland’s efforts to seek exoneration and effect his release.”
The Washington Post, in a June 20 editorial:
“Missouri law inhibits the ability of local prosecutors to correct wrongful convictions, while giving an outsize role to the state’s attorney general’s office — and that office for decades has fought nearly every wrongful conviction case, no matter how compelling the evidence.”
Missouri Attorney General’s Office:
Strickland received a fair trial in 1979 and has “worked to evade responsibility” for the Kansas City killings since then.
Tricia Rojo Bushnell, one of Strickland’s attorneys and executive director of the Midwest Innocence Project:
“They will have taken away decades of his life and given him nothing back,” she said of the lack of compensation for Missouri exonerees.
Pete Carroll, head coach Seattle Seahawks via Twitter:
“Free Kevin Strickland.”
Benjamin Crump, civil rights attorney who represented the family of George Floyd, via Twitter:
“An all-white jury falsely convicted Kevin Strickland of triple homicide in 1978. He had a confirmed alibi and the key witness recanted, but Strickland remains behind bars today! Why does Missouri Supreme Court continue to deny an innocent man his freedom?!”
This story was originally published July 12, 2021 at 12:40 PM.
