Court denies Missouri AG request to move Kevin Strickland hearing out of Jackson County
An appeals court has denied the Missouri Attorney General’s Office’s request that all judges in Jackson County be disqualified from hearing local prosecutors argue Kevin Strickland is innocent.
The attorney general had appealed Judge Kevin Harrell’s decision to not recuse himself and other Jackson County judges. The office, under Eric Schmitt, contended there was an appearance of bias in the 16th Circuit Court because its presiding judge, Dale Youngs, has said he “concurs on behalf” of the court that Strickland, 62, should be exonerated.
The latest denial means Jackson County prosecutors will still have the opportunity to argue before Harrell that Strickland has wrongly spent more than 40 years in prison. An evidentiary hearing, which could lead to Strickland’s freedom, is set to start Oct. 5.
The attorney general’s office, which argues Strickland is guilty, appealed Thursday to the Missouri Supreme Court.
BEHIND THE STORY
MOREOur coverage of Kevin Strickland's story
The Kansas City Star has been covering Kevin Strickland and his innocence claim since September 2020, when we published a deeply reported story from Luke Nozicka that explored the details surrounding the 1978 triple murder Strickland is accused of helping to carry out, as well as the men who have admitted guilt, and the the only witness to the murders saying Strickland is innocent. That report from The Star served in part as the basis for local prosecutors’ review of Strickland’s case in November 2020. Now, Jackson County prosecutors, Kansas City’s mayor and others agreed he deserved to be exonerated, but the state, and specifically the Attorney General’s Office maintains he’s guilty. Read more by clicking the arrow in the upper right.
Why is he still in prison?
Kevin Strickland has spent 42 years in a Missouri prison for a crime that he, and prosecutors, says he didn’t commit. Prosecutors argued in a 25-page motion that Strickland’s innocence is “clear and convincing.” But previously, without the support of Missouri Gov. Mike Parson handing down a pardon or the state Attorneys General, prosecutors in Missouri have had no legal tools to seek to free prisoners they have deemed innocent. That changed in August 2021, however, in a new law that passed as part of a package of criminal justice reforms the Missouri legislature approved and sent to Gov. Mike Parson’s desk in May.
That law gives local prosecutors a mechanism previously missing in state law to pursue freedom for the wrongfully convicted, a step prosecutors’ offices around the nation are taking in the age of criminal justice reform. Prior to the law change, petitions to have convictions tossed have generally only come from the inmates themselves.
In its filing to the Missouri Court of Appeals’ Western District, the attorney general’s office had argued that by publicizing Youngs’ comment, Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker’s office created a “public expectation that Strickland will be released because he is innocent.” Harrell has said, though, he was not aware of Youngs’ statement until it became an issue in his courtroom.
The ACLU of Missouri on Thursday said Strickland should be freed “today.”
“Every day he sits in a Missouri prison is another day that Missouri is on the wrong side of justice, and another day of justice denied,” the organization said on Twitter.
On Wednesday, The Star reported that the publisher of The Call, Kansas City’s Black newspaper, is among two witnesses prosecutors plan to call to the stand during the evidentiary hearing. That’s because the lone eyewitness to the triple murder for which Strickland remains imprisoned recanted her identification of Strickland to him twice, he said.
This story was originally published September 23, 2021 at 11:51 AM.
