Jimmie “Chris” Duncan walked out of the Ouachita Parish Correctional Middle and into the arms of his mother and father final week after spending the final 27 years on demise row.
Seven months in the past, a Louisiana district courtroom choose vacated his homicide conviction for killing his former girlfriend’s toddler, citing doubts concerning the proof used to convict him. The choose granted bail after a number of authorized delays, together with an unsuccessful request by prosecutors to the Louisiana Supreme Court docket to cease his launch. Now free, Duncan spent Thanksgiving along with his household — then celebrated his 57th birthday the following day.
“We thank God for Jimmie coming residence,” Duncan’s stepmom, Sharon Duncan, stated in an emailed assertion on behalf of the household.
However Duncan’s journey to freedom is way from over. Prosecutors have requested the state Supreme Court docket to reinstate his demise sentence. Duncan’s attorneys declined to make him instantly out there for an interview.
The April choice by Decide Alvin Sharp to put aside Duncan’s conviction and demise sentence got here after a Verite Information and ProPublica investigation examined the reliability of the important thing forensic proof used to convict him. On the time, Duncan confronted the potential for being put to demise as Gov. Jeff Landry, a staunch demise penalty advocate, made strikes to expedite executions after a 15-year pause.
Sharp, of the 4th Judicial District in Ouachita Parish, discovered that Duncan’s conviction was primarily based partially on chunk mark proof now thought of by consultants to be junk science. That unique evaluation got here from forensic dentist Michael West and pathologist Dr. Steven Hayne, whose longtime partnership as state consultants has been questioned following considerations concerning the validity of their strategies. West, who didn’t reply to earlier requests for remark, admitted in a 2011 deposition in one other case that he not believed in chunk mark evaluation. Hayne died in 2020.
Over the previous 27 years, 9 prisoners have been let loose after being convicted partially on inaccurate proof given by West and Hayne. Three of these males have been on demise row. Duncan was the final particular person awaiting an execution primarily based on the pair’s work.
Robert S. Tew, district lawyer for Ouachita and Morehouse parishes, insisted in his attraction that the proof prosecutors offered is sound, that Duncan raped and murdered 23-month-old Haley Oliveaux, and that he must be executed immediately. Tew’s workplace didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark about Duncan’s launch.
Police arrested Duncan on Dec. 18, 1993. He was babysitting Haley that day within the residence he shared with the lady’s mom in West Monroe. Duncan instructed legislation enforcement he had put the toddler within the bathtub earlier than going downstairs to scrub dishes. When he heard a noise coming from the toilet, he rushed upstairs to examine on her and located Haley floating face down within the water. She was pronounced useless a couple of hours later.
Duncan was initially arrested for negligent murder, till Hayne and West carried out Haley’s medical examination and claimed they found proof she had been sexually assaulted and deliberately drowned. Hayne stated he discovered chunk marks on the lady’s physique, which West then examined, claiming to search out that they have been a match for Duncan’s enamel.
Primarily based partially on these findings, prosecutors upped the cost in opposition to Duncan to first-degree homicide. After about two weeks of testimony in 1998, the jury discovered Duncan responsible and sentenced him to demise. He would spend the following quarter-century in a cell on demise row at Angola Jail.
Throughout that point, nevertheless, his attorneys with the Innocence Venture in New York, the Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner agency in Atlanta, and the Mwalimu Middle for Justice in New Orleans uncovered a trove of proof that finally led to his conviction being vacated in April.
Essentially the most damning of that new proof calls into query whether or not the chunk marks Hayne stated he discovered on Haley’s physique have been manufactured. In a video of West’s 1993 examination of Haley, which was not proven to jurors on the trial, the dentist might be seen taking a mildew of Duncan’s enamel and grinding it into the lady’s physique. (West has beforehand stated he was merely utilizing what he referred to as a “direct comparability” approach — through which he presses a mildew of an individual’s enamel immediately onto the situation of suspected chunk marks.)
In his ruling vacating Duncan’s conviction, Sharp stated the work Hayne and West did on Duncan’s case was “not legitimate” and “not scientifically defensible.”
Extra proof that undermined Duncan’s conviction included testimony from an skilled witness who stated that the kid’s demise was the outcome not of a murder however of an unintentional drowning. And investigators working for Duncan’s authorized crew spoke to a jailhouse informant who recanted his earlier trial testimony that Duncan confessed to the crime.
Haley’s mom, Allison Layton Statham, has come to assist Duncan’s launch, telling Mississippi Right now in a July interview that she believes Duncan “was falsely accused of a criminal offense he didn’t commit.”
As the upper courtroom weighs the state’s attraction, Sharp, who had already dominated that Duncan was factually harmless of the crime, granted him bail on Nov. 21, setting it at $150,000. In his choice, Sharp stated that the “presumption is just not nice” that Duncan is responsible and proof in opposition to him is “not evident.” The state fought the discharge however misplaced in courtroom, setting the stage for Duncan to be freed the day earlier than Thanksgiving.
“When Chris received out and I went to hug him, I used to be very emotional,” stated lawyer Ann Ferebee, a member of Duncan’s authorized crew for the final decade who greeted him shortly after his launch. “I used to be form of choked up, and he requested me, ‘Are you doing OK?’
“‘Actually good to see you,’ is what I instructed him.”
Following his launch, Duncan went to reside with a member of the family in central Louisiana. Christian Bromley, one other lawyer of Duncan’s, stated he expects oral arguments within the state’s attraction to happen earlier than the state Supreme Court docket in early 2026. Ought to prosecutors lose that spherical, they might take the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court docket, retry Duncan on the identical costs or retry him a brand new set of costs, Bromley stated.
Or they might drop the costs altogether. However that appears unlikely, he stated.
“We met Chris nearly 10 years in the past and have believed in his innocence, similar to he has, that complete time,” Bromley stated. “I feel it’s one thing that we at all times hoped for however knew that it was probably an insurmountable feat to get there.”
Till this 12 months, Louisiana had not carried out an execution since 2010 because it has been unable to acquire the mandatory medication. However following Landry’s election, the state authorised the usage of nitrogen gasoline, a controversial methodology allowed in solely three different states.
That led to the March 18 execution of Jesse Hoffman Jr. Saving Duncan from the same destiny has been “probably the most rewarding expertise of my profession,” stated Ferebee, although she acknowledged that prosecutors are nonetheless pushing for the execution of Duncan. “We’re celebrating this victory, however we all know that there’s nonetheless extra to return.”
