Man who spent 27 years on death row now freed after disturbing video evidence emerges
In 1998, Jimmie 'Chris' Duncan was convicted of the rape and murder of 23-month-old girl Haley Oliveaux, the daughter of his girlfriend Allison Layton Statham.
He spent the next 27 years on death row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, Louisiana, facing execution for a crime the Louisiana Supreme Court last month ruled 'no rational juror' would convict him on.
After almost three decades behind bars and facing execution, Duncan was released after a judge vacated his conviction following testimony that forensic evidence which sent the man to death row was 'not scientifically defensible'.
NBC reports that Duncan 'cried with relief' when he heard his conviction had been thrown out, as Fourth Judicial District Judge Alvin Sharp heard that the toddler's death instead appeared to be consisted with accidental drowning instead of murder.
Advert
"The presumption is not great that he is guilty," the judge wrote in his decision to vacate the conviction as Duncan was bailed following new forensic evidence.
Part of the reason he'd been convicted in the first place was due to bite mark analysis, which researchers have since discredited as being an accurate or useful part of forensics.
However, in a disturbing video which wasn't shown to the jury at the time of his trial of dentist Michael West and pathologist Steven Hayne pressing a mouth mould of Duncan's teeth into Haley Oliveaux's body.
In the video West presses the mouth mould bearing the imprint of the man's teeth into the child's body, he argued that he wasn't making new marks but was comparing the mould of Duncan's teeth to existing marks on her body which the video footage might not show.
The judge in the trial watched the footage and decided it contained 'no exculpatory evidence favourable to the defendant contained in the tape', it wasn't shown to a jury that found the man guilty of murder after just a few hours deliberation.
The jury also wasn't told that the toddler had a history of seizures and had previously been hospitalised because of it.
Years later Judge Sharp ruled that the toddler had drowned in the bath after having a seizure and there was no evidence of sexual assault.
Haley's mum saw the unearthed evidence for the first time and has decided that Duncan did not kill her daughter, instead telling NBC 'he was convicted because they lied'.
"They railroaded this man, they fabricated evidence, they desecrated my daughter and videotaped it," she said.
Court documents indicate she said: "The horror story that they put out and desecrated my baby's memory makes me infuriated.
"I was not informed of anything that would have exonerated Mr. Duncan at all. Had I been then, things would have turned out a lot different for Mr. Duncan and all of our families."
Despite this latest development prosecutors are still seeking the death penalty for Duncan and have appealed for his conviction to be reinstated so the can send him back to death row.
Hayne has since died, but in 2011 West acknowledged that bite mark analysis is obsolete.
Ouachita Parish District Attorney's Office cannot currently comment as their appeal is waiting for the Louisiana Supreme Court.
Joe Harker