Former Missouri Supreme Court justice joins team working to free Kevin Strickland
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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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A former Missouri Supreme Court chief justice has joined the Jackson County prosecutor’s team working to exonerate Kevin Strickland.
Edward “Chip” Robertson, who served on the state Supreme Court for 13 years, will work on the case with Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker. Baker’s office has determined Strickland, 62, has spent more than 40 years in prison for a triple murder he did not commit.
The addition of Robertson, who was appointed to the state’s highest court by Republican Gov. John Ashcroft, is notable because some observers have come to view the effort to free Strickland as political. Baker, former chair of the Missouri Democratic Party, is facing off in the case with the Missouri Attorney General’s Office under Eric Schmitt, a Republican running for U.S. Senate.
Robertson, then 33, was named to the Supreme Court in June 1985, which made him the youngest appointee to the court in modern times. He served as its chief justice from 1991 to 1993 and retired in 1998.
When Robertson left the court, Chief Justice Duane Benton called him “a giant in Missouri jurisprudence.”
Robertson did not immediately return a message left at Bartimus Frickleton Robertson Rader, where he oversee the Leawood-based law firm’s appellate practice.
Strickland’s attorneys will appear in court again Monday, when they and lawyers with the attorney general’s office, which contends Strickland is guilty, will argue over motions filed by the attorney general.
An evidentiary hearing that could have led to Strickland’s release Sept. 2 was canceled after the attorney general’s office filed an emergency petition saying it needed more time to prepare for it. An appeals court sided with the attorney general.
A hearing during which prosecutors will argue Strickland is innocent has not yet been rescheduled.
This story was originally published September 10, 2021 at 1:37 PM.
