The St. Louis prosecutor is defending her authority to ask for a new trial for a man she says was wrongfully convicted of murder and armed criminal action 24 years ago.
Kim Gardner last month filed a motion for a new trial in the case of Lamar Johnson. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole in 1995 for shooting and killing Marcus Boyd — a conviction that Gardner’s office argued was tainted by police and prosecutorial misconduct.
The Midwest Innocence Project has worked on Johnson’s case since 2010, so the request for a new trial from Gardner’s office marks a rare instance in which prosecutors and defense attorneys agree that a defendant is innocent. But late last month, Circuit Judge Elizabeth Hogan ordered the Missouri Attorney General’s Office to “appear on behalf of the state” in Johnson’s case, essentially taking the place of Gardner.
Hogan is also asking all of the attorneys to lay out whether Gardner even has the right to ask for a new trial.
“It’s crucial as a minister of justice to correct the wrongs of a wrongfully convicted person, and it’s our duty,” Gardner said at a news conference after a hearing on the matter Thursday. “Under the ethics of a prosecutor, when the evidence shows that an individual is innocent, we must correct the wrong.”
Asked whether her office could be fair in handling a case of prosecutorial misconduct that she uncovered, Gardner said it remained her duty to report misconduct wherever it happened.
“If you’re saying that a prosecutor doesn’t have a duty to do that, then that puts into conflict any law enforcement agency’s ability to investigate wrongdoing in their office,” she said.
A spokeswoman for Attorney General Eric Schmitt said the office would file the documents Hogan requested, but had no further comment about the case.
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