Cynthia Douglas didn't recognize the man who held the shotgun.
Douglas was hanging out with her friends, including her boyfriend, Jack Walker, at the bungalow of Larry Ingram in Kansas City, Missouri, when four men entered. Douglas was the only one to survive the attack. She told police she recognized two of the attackers, but the other two were a mystery. A man was wearing something on his head. The man holding the shotgun had short facial hair.
Douglas seemed to change her mind the next day. She told the cops that she thought the man with the shotgun might be her friend, Kevin. She told her sister's boyfriend about the attackers. He told her that the short one sounded like it was from someone who lived down from Bell. Douglas didn't know that Strickland had facial hair. She came around to the idea. Even though there was no physical evidence tying him to the crime, Douglas testified that he would be sentenced to life in prison.
Douglas passed away in 2015. Douglas realized she was wrong after the hearing in Kansas City, her friends and family said. She tried to get people to listen. Senoria Douglas recalled her daughter telling her that she picked the wrong guy. I picked the wrong guy.
He was in prison for 43 years and maintained his innocence. The prosecutor's office in Kansas City was interested in the case after Douglas's death. Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Baker Peters became convinced of Strickland's innocence, and her quest to overturn the conviction prompted this month's court hearing.
The conviction could not stand because the judge ruled that Douglas's recantation was credible. The man was released a few hours later. He said he didn't think it would happen.
Missouri prosecutors lacked a way to revisit a conviction they believe was wrongly obtained, so this scenario would have been impossible until recently. The state legislature passed a law to fix the problem. The law had its first test with the case of Strickland. Baker said that they were extremely pleased and grateful. This brings justice to a man who has suffered so much as a result of this wrongful conviction.
The positive outcome came despite the fact that the state Attorney General was going to stand in the way. In a court filing, Schmitt wrote that he was correct in his view that Strickland was fairly tried and convicted. For more than forty years, he wrote, "Strickland has worked to evade responsibility for the murders."
The future of the state's new law, designed to fix such miscarriages of justice, has been cast a shadow by the stubbornness of Schmitt. Sean O'Brien, a law professor at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, said that the attorney general's office waged a pitched battle in Kansas City that may have a chilling effect on prosecutors in smaller or more rural counties. That may be the intent.
The Attorney General of Missouri will take the oath of office on January 11, 2021.
Photo by Jeff Roberson.
On April 25, 1978, Douglas, Black, and Walker met up in the late afternoon and went to the house. The friends, all in their early 20s, were smoking pot, drinking cognac, and watching TV when a knock on the front door came. Two men came into the house. A pistol was on top of the TV and was held to the head by Adkins. A few days earlier, Adkins had lost money in a game that he thought was rigged with loaded dice, and he had held craps games at the house.
Two others were ushered inside by Adkins. The short guy pointed a shotgun at Douglas and told her not to look at him. Douglas and Black were tied together. The men were arguing with one another, and when they were bound, the man started shooting, killing them all. The man with the shotgun shot buckshot into Black and Douglas. Douglas played dead. The men went around the house. Douglas went outside to look for help after she wriggled free.
Douglas was hysterical and bleeding when police arrived at the scene. She didn't know who the other two perpetrators were. She gave her first formal interview at the police station after 3 a.m.
Douglas called the cops the next day and said that he was the guy with the shotgun. She easily identified him when police asked her to look at a lineup at the station.
He was charged with murder. The death penalty would be sought by the state. The news of Strickland's arrest was a good sign for the two men who fled to Kansas before being arrested. Bell was told that it was good. They are picking up the wrong man.
He was the first to be tried. In February 1979 the state tried to convict him, but the lone Black juror refused to find him guilty. According to a court filing, after the jury failed to convict, the prosecutor said he had been careless and wouldn't let Black people on the jury again. He was successful in seating an all-white jury, which found him guilty after a three-day trial. He was sentenced to 50 years of life without the possibility of parole.
Win at all costs.
Seeing Strickland convicted of a crime they knew he didn't commit spooked the two men who pleaded guilty in exchange for 20-year prison sentences. Bell gave a lengthy account of the crime during his allocution. Strickland was not one of them. He said that Kevin was not at that house. I told the state and society that Kevin was not at that house.
I told the state and society that Kevin was not at that house.
Bell said that he and the others committed the crime. In two separate affidavits, Adkins confirmed Bell's account. Abbott is currently serving a life sentence in Colorado for an unrelated armed robbery. Abbott told an investigator for the Midwest Innocence Project that there couldn't be a more innocent person.
He was never charged or investigated for his possible role in the crime. The email from The Intercept was not responded to by Holiway.
Friends and family say that Douglas's role in sending Strickland to prison weighed heavily on her. The subject line of the email was "Wrongfully charged."
The office's Conviction Integrity Unit started its own review of the case after the organization asked the Jackson County Prosecutor's Office to agree to fingerprint testing on the shotgun. The prosecutor said in June that she had determined that the man was not guilty. My job is to protect the innocent. Prosecutors show a lot of arrogance, right? She said during the press conference that she shows it from time to time. My job is to apologize. It is important to know when the system has made a mistake. What we did in this case was not right.
It was her duty to see that the wrong was corrected. It is easier said than done in Missouri. The attorney general's office fought hard to keep state law from preventing local prosecutors from taking action to overturn wrongful convictions.
Lamar Johnson has been in prison since 1994 for a murder that no one believes he committed. The office insisted that there was no power to help Johnson. The attorney general's office argued that giving a local prosecutor the power to right a wrongful conviction had the potential to undermine public confidence in the criminal legal system.
O'Brien has worked on numerous exonerations over the last three decades. He said that the attorney general's office has always opposed innocence claims. This office has never admitted that a mistake was made.
The culture of this win-at-all-costs culture has been found to be obscene and absurd. The case of Joseph Amrine, who was on death row for a murder he didn't commit, was considered by the Missouri Supreme Court. Amrine should not have his innocence claim considered by the court because he had exhausted his appeals, according to the attorney general's office. One of the judges asked if you were suggesting that Mr. Amrine should be executed if he is innocent. An assistant attorney general said that was correct.
In Johnson's case, the state's high court ruled that there wasn't a way for prosecutors to take legal action in local courts to correct injustice. The legislature was called to take charge by the chief justice.
A wrongful conviction can be thrown out in the court where it was originally tried under a new law in Missouri. There is a requirement for the reviewing judge to hold a hearing and decide if there is clear and convincing evidence of actual innocence or a constitutional violation that would undermine the conviction.
The law requires that the attorney general's office be given the chance to argue its case in the hearing.
On the day the new law took effect, Baker was ready to file for a hearing. The Jackson County bench should be disqualified because the presiding judge told Baker's office that he agreed with the innocence of Strickland, according to the challenge. The local judges were blocked from hearing the case by the Missouri Supreme Court in order to avoid the appearance of partiality or impropriety.
On Nov. 8, 2021, Kevin was assisted into a Jackson County courtroom.
The Kansas City Star via AP
Reporters waited for 62-year-old Strickland to arrive at the Jackson County courthouse on the morning of November 8. He is a slight man, just 5-foot 3, and now has to use a wheelchair because of his spine issues. His lawyers said that he can only stand for a short time at a time.
Baker and lawyers for Strickland called witnesses to testify against Cynthia Douglas, who they claim was the real culprit in the case. A group of friends and family said that Douglas knew she had identified the wrong guy. The witnesses said that the weight of the struggle combined with the ongoing grief over the death of her best friend had led to Douglas's death at age 57.
Cecile Simmons testified that Douglas reached out to several people, including a former governor and a senator. No one listened. Simmons was told by Douglas that if she didn't cooperate, all the perpetrators would go unpunished. Simmons said that Douglas was threatened with arrest and perjury charges when he tried to recant. Simmons testified that it was hard to comfort someone when they were not at peace. This just haunted her.
Douglas had been to Eric Wesson multiple times in the 2000s fretting over what to do. He helped her figure out what to write in her email. He said that she tried contacting people from her personal email address, but decided to try her work address. Even though she joked that it could get her fired for improper use, she thought that the imprimatur of the Jackson County Family Court system might get someone's attention. She used her work address to send a letter to the project.
The testimony of people Douglas had told about his innocence went beyond the witness testimony. Douglas told the cops that the guy with the shotgun had hair that was natural, but when they picked him up the next morning, his hair was done in signature braids. The shotgun was recovered in a ravine near a plant. They did not match the fingerprints on it. The attorney general requested that the expert review 60 prints from the crime scene, but none of them belonged to Strickland.
The lawyers for Strickland presented a narrative of how the case went sideways and ended in a wrongful conviction. The attorney general's case was a mess, but it didn't stick.
The three assistant attorneys general on the case said that the email Douglas sent was a fake. Even though he was in prison and without access to a computer, the implication seemed to be that he was behind the spoofing of her work email.
One of the attorneys tried to damage the credibility of the man by mentioning that he had been in prison. Simmons was motivated to lie because she lost friends over her role as a witness for the prosecution, according to another. He said that Simmons was inclined to help Baker because she met an elected official. Simmons shot him. Simmons didn't answer the door when Baker showed up. I called my husband and said there was a woman at the door. I don't know who it is, but it's probably not good.
Dr. Nancy Franklin is a retired psychology professor. Franklin concluded that Douglas's identification of Strickland was unreliable after reviewing the case. Franklin made clear in her testimony that she had taken the case pro bono, but Krug went on to say how much money Franklin usually gets paid for expert consultation. It was the kind of witness that prosecutors often use in front of a jury. The hearing was before a judge, and it seemed to fall flat.
Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker will give her closing arguments in the case of Kevin Strickland on Nov. 10, 2021, in Kansas City, Mo.
The Kansas City Star via AP
The executive director of the Midwest Innocence Project helped Strickland out of his wheelchair so he could testify at the hearing. His hair is still pulled into braids. He wore a red shirt. He had a chain around his waist.
He said he had nothing to do with the murders. I was not close to that crime scene.
He said that after he was charged, he was offered a plea bargain, but he didn't take it. He couldn't take responsibility for the crime he didn't commit. He said he knew the system worked. He thought he would be vindicated. I wouldn't be convicted of something I didn't do.
Despite the efforts of the attorney general's office, Strickland has finally found that he is vindicated. Welsh rejected the attorney general's argument that Douglas's recantations were not real. He wrote that the recantations Douglas made to her family and friends are reliable. They were consistent.
He found credible statements by Bell and Adkins that they were not involved in the triple murder and concluded that the conviction rested on Douglas's faulty identification. He wrote that the court's confidence in Strickland's conviction is so undermined that it cannot stand.
Chris Nuelle, a spokesman for the attorney general, said that the attorney general defended the rule of law and the decision of the jury. No action will be taken after the court has spoken.
Is it possible that I will invite this fight if I am a prosecutor in a one-horse county?
The law that led to the case will continue to work as intended, but it is not certain whether the outcome means that. The attorney general has too much power to stymies the process, according to some prominent attorneys in Missouri.
The story unfolding in Kansas City has been paid attention to by prosecutors across the state. It seems reasonable that she will use the law to exonerate Lamar Johnson, though a spokesman for her didn't respond to a question about that. In a statement, she said that her office continues to move forward with diligence in its effort to ensure that Lamar Johnson gets justice.
The case was marred by police and prosecutor malfeasance. The two men responsible for the murder of Johnson have admitted their guilt, saying that Johnson did not play any role. The man who stood up for Johnson put himself on the hook for a murder conviction because he never was charged in connection with the case.
While prosecutors like Baker, Gardner, and St. Louis County have the resources to wage a fight, Missouri's smaller jurisdictions don't have those resources. The aggressive stance of Schmitt may discourage others from trying to correct injustice. It is rare, but we do see exonerations from rural counties. Is it possible that I will invite this fight if I am a prosecutor in a one-horse county?
The news alert flashed with the news that Welsh had ruled, and the prisoners started cheering. He told reporters that he was in disbelief about being freed.
The Kansas City Star reported that Strickland's brother was overwhelmed by the news that he would be coming home. He hasn't been home for Thanksgiving in more than four decades.
But the battle is not over. 19 percent of the nearly 2,900 exonerations nationwide since 1989 have been caused by people being wrongly convicted, and only Missouri allows the state to compensate them. There is no immediate way for the state to repair the damage it has done.
The attorney general only succeeded in increasing the toll of his wrongful conviction by blocking the local judges from considering the case, which meant that he was unable to see his mother before she died. Schmitt delayed Kevin's release until his mother was dead, according to O'Brien.
The Midwest Innocence Project has set up a campaign to help pay for basic needs as he adjusts to life outside prison, as he will be staying with his brother for a while. O'Brien wrote that the day was dimmed by the realization that he was leaving prison with nothing.
