Two days ago, a judge finally ruled that Dunn, as he has long maintained, was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1990.
But as the Missouri Department of Corrections was finalizing Dunn’s release paperwork on Wednesday, the warden got a call: The state Supreme Court had stayed the release order after the state attorney general appealed to keep Dunn behind bars.
“It was probably the greatest joy and the worst sadness I can remember in my life,” said Kira Dunn, who flew in from California using her saved airline miles to see her husband’s release. “We were completely stunned.”
“He was literally 50 feet from freedom,” she added.
St. Louis Circuit Judge Jason Sennheiser on Monday ruled that Dunn, 52, was wrongfully convicted of the murder of 15-year-old Rico Rogers and ordered him released by Wednesday evening.
The judge wrote that St. Louis Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore established Dunn’s “true innocence” after two witnesses who identified him as the killer in 1990 recanted their testimony as adults, saying they had been coerced by police to do so.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (a Republican) argued that the recantation was coerced and that Dunn was genuinely guilty. Judge Sennheiser rejected Bailey’s arguments, writing in his decision that “the Attorney General has presented no evidence whatsoever to support these allegations.”
Hours after the ruling, Bailey filed an appeal, and just before a Wednesday deadline to release Dunn, the state Supreme Court blocked his release pending the appeal process.
The court could rule on the case as early as next week and release Dunn.
During that time, he stripped off his civilian clothes and changed into different prison uniforms, his wife said.
“He liquidated all of the assets in the prison,” Kira Dunn said. “We’re very hurt and honestly we don’t understand why someone tasked with protecting the welfare of the people of Missouri would do something like this.”
Dunn has maintained his innocence for decades. In 2020, a different judge found a jury would likely acquit him based on new evidence, but said he could not acquit him because only those on death row in Missouri are eligible for that sentence.
The state then passed a law in 2021 expanding who can seek a new trial, allowing prosecutors to bring potentially wrongfully convicted cases back to court if new evidence emerges.
In February of this year, St. Louis prosecutor Gore did just that, filing a motion to vacate the conviction.
According to court documents, State Attorney General Bailey advised the Department of Corrections to wait to release Dunn until the appeal is over.
“Throughout the appeals process, multiple courts have upheld Christopher Dunn’s murder conviction,” Bailey’s spokeswoman, Madeline Schieren, said in an email. “We will always fight for the rule of law and to achieve justice for the victims.”
Citing the pending litigation, Schieren declined to comment further on the record.
Dunn’s case is the second in as many weeks in which Bailey has sought to appeal a conviction that was overturned by the state Supreme Court.
On June 14, after a different judge overturned the conviction of Sandra Hemme in a 1980 stabbing, Bailey’s office also instructed prison officials not to release the 64-year-old woman while the appeals process played out. The Missouri Supreme Court agreed with the overturned ruling, and the judge in that case said last week that Bailey would have to appear in court himself if Hemme was not released. She was released that same day.
Charles Zag, a political science professor at the University of Missouri, said Bailey has offered few legal reasons for why Dunn should not be released, and there may be political reasons.
Bailey is facing a right-wing challenge in the primary from Will Scharf, a lawyer who has represented Donald Trump. The former president has yet to endorse the race, but if he does, Zug said, it could sway the outcome of the primary. Zug said he interprets Bailey’s actions as an attempt to bolster his “law and order” credentials with party leaders and gain their support.
“Dunn seems to be throwing spaghetti at the wall, trying as best he can to prove to Republicans that he’s conservative enough,” Zag said. “Unfortunately, he’s become a chess piece here.”
Dunn’s lawyers argued in papers filed Thursday with the Missouri Supreme Court that Bailey has no right to appeal the judge’s ruling, and that only the prosecutors who fought for Dunn’s release can do so.
“This tug-of-war must end,” they wrote.
Dunn’s mother, sisters and nephew were with his wife, Kira, in Missouri to see him released from prison on Wednesday. When it became clear that release was not possible, Kira went inside the prison to speak with the warden, who allowed her to see her husband.
She said the light had gone out of Dunn’s eyes. They shook hands. She told him it was just a little something and that she would be waiting for him outside the prison next week.
“We’ve been waiting a long time,” she said. “I guess we’ll just have to keep waiting.”
