Over the years, Missouri inmate Christopher Dunn, serving a life sentence for a 1990 fatal shooting, encountered numerous hurdles in his quest for exoneration. Recently, he faced another setback. Although a judge ordered Dunn's release, it was stopped the warden's phone call. On the line was the state attorney general, Andrew Bailey, who had stepped in to ensure Dunn, 52, remained incarcerated. He was ordered to change back into his prison uniform and returned to his cell, leaving the St. Louis prosecutor, who had asked the court to clear Dunn, scrambling to free him. It was not the first time that Bailey had sought to upend an exoneration, and his intervention in the Dunn case came at a critical point in his tenure, with the Missouri primary election scheduled for Tuesday, reports the New York Times.
Bailey, who took office 17 months ago to fill out his predecessor’s term, is trying to fend off a formidable challenger as he seeks a full four-year term as the state’s top law enforcement officer. Weeks before trying to block Dunn’s release, Bailey moved to keep Sandra Hemme locked up after a judge ruled that she was innocent. Hemme, who had been in prison for 43 years, spent another month behind bars before the state’s highest court stepped in and ordered her release. In June, Bailey tried unsuccessfully to quash a motion by the St. Louis County prosecutor to exonerate Marcellus Williams, who was convicted of the 1998 murder of a local journalist and faces execution in September. So far, Bailey’s efforts have managed to delay but not derail the release of exonerees. But his actions have generated news coverage of him facing off against Democratic prosecutors, at a time when his primary opponent, Will Scharf, a lawyer for former President Trump, was attacking Bailey as soft on crime.
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