Louisiana man released on bail after 30 years on death row following overturned conviction
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A Louisiana man who spent nearly 30 years on death row walked out of prison Wednesday after a judge overturned his conviction and granted him bail.
Jimmie Duncan, now in his 60s, was sentenced to death in 1998 for the alleged rape and drowning of his girlfriend’s 23-month-old daughter, Haley Oliveaux – a case long clouded by controversial forensic testimony. His release comes months after a state judge ruled that the evidence prosecutors used to secure the conviction was unreliable and relied on discredited analysis of bite marks.
Fourth Judicial District Judge Alvin Sharp threw out the conviction in April, finding that the expert testimony presented at trial was “not scientifically defensible” and that the toddler’s death appeared to be consistent with accidental drowning.
“The presumption of guilt is not great,” Sharp wrote in his order last week granting Duncan bail, pointing to new evidence presented at an evidentiary hearing last year and the fact that the man had no criminal history.
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Jimmie Duncan, second from left, with family and friends at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, known as Angola. (Mwalimu Center for Justice via AP)
Similar flawed forensic analysis of bite marks has resulted in dozens of other wrongful convictions or charges.
Duncan’s lawyers said in a statement that Sharp’s ruling in April showed “clear and convincing evidence demonstrating that Mr. Duncan is factually innocent,” adding that Duncan’s release on bail “marks a significant step forward toward Mr. Duncan’s complete exoneration.”
Duncan was released after posting $150,000 bond. He plans to live with a relative in central Louisiana while his overturned conviction is under review by the Louisiana Supreme Court.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, a Republican who has pushed to speed up executions, opposed Duncan’s release and argued he should remain behind bars until the state’s high court makes a decision. But the Louisiana Supreme Court allowed the district court to rule on Duncan’s bail request, clearing the way for his release.
More than 200 death row inmates nationwide have been released since 1973, including a dozen in Louisiana, according to the Death Penalty Information Center — one of the highest rates of wrongful convictions in the country. Louisiana has one of the highest rates of wrongful convictions in the country. The last exoneration from death row in the Bayou State was in 2016.
Duncan was one of 55 people sentenced to death in Louisiana at the state prison known as Angola. Louisiana carried out its first execution in 15 years this year.
During last week’s bail hearing, the victim’s mother stunned the courtroom when she said she now believes Duncan did not kill her daughter. She told the judge the child, who had a history of seizures, likely drowned accidentally.
A Louisiana corrections officer looks on from a tower near Camp 57 at Angola Prison, the Louisiana State Penitentiary and America’s largest maximum security prison farm. (Getty Images)
Statham said his daughter “was not killed,” emphasizing that “Haley died because she was sick.”
She told the court that her family’s and Duncan’s lives “were destroyed by the lie” she said prosecutors and forensic experts had made up.
Prosecutors had relied heavily on analysis of bite marks and autopsy results from forensic dentist Michael West and pathologist Steven Hayne — two experts later linked to several overturned convictions.
Defense attorneys said an autopsy video shows West pushing a dental mold into the toddler’s skin, creating the same bite marks later attributed to Duncan. A state-appointed expert, unaware of the video, testified at trial that the marks matched Duncan’s teeth.
“The horror story they told that desecrated my baby’s memory infuriates me,” Statham said.
“I have not been informed of anything that could have exonerated Mr. Duncan,” she continued. “If I had been there at that time, things would have been a lot different for Mr. Duncan and all of our families.”
Over the past 25 years, there have been at least two dozen wrongful convictions or charges based on bite mark analysis.
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The entrance to the Louisiana State Penitentiary, known as Angola. (Giles Clarke/Getty Images)
Innocence Project attorney Mr Chris Fabricant blasted the forensic methods used in the case, telling the court that “bite bite evidence is junk science” and remains among the most damaging forms of flawed forensic testimony yet admitted by US courts.
West and Hayne’s work has been linked to several wrongful convictions, including those of Mississippi men Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer, who together served 30 years before DNA evidence exonerated them.
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Despite these new revelations, prosecutors are still seeking to reinstate Duncan’s conviction and have cited the original 1994 grand jury indictment to argue that he should remain incarcerated.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
