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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 disputed forensic testimony. His release comes months after a state judge ruled that the evidence prosecutors used to secure the conviction was unreliable and rooted in discredited bite-mark analysis.
Fourth Judicial District Court Judge Alvin Sharp tossed the conviction in April, concluding that the expert testimony presented at trial was “not scientifically defensible” and that the toddler’s death appeared consistent with an accidental drowning.
“The presumption is not great that he is guilty,” 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 previous 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 faulty forensic bite mark analysis has resulted in dozens of other wrongful convictions or charges.
Duncan’s attorneys said in a statement that Sharp’s ruling in April showed “clear and convincing evidence showing that Mr. Duncan is factually innocent,” adding that Duncan’s release on bail “marks a significant step forward for Mr. Duncan’s complete exoneration.”
Duncan was released after posting a $150,000 bond. He plans to live with a relative in central Louisiana while his vacated conviction is being reviewed by the Louisiana Supreme Court.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, a Republican who has pushed to speed up executions, objected to Duncan’s release and argued he should remain behind bars until the state’s high court reaches a decision. But the Louisiana Supreme Court allowed the district court to rule on Duncan’s bail request, paving the way for his release.
More than 200 death row inmates nationwide have been cleared since 1973, including a dozen in Louisiana, according to the Death Penalty Information Center — one of the highest wrongful-conviction rates in the country. Louisiana has one of the highest wrongful conviction rates in the country. The last death row exoneration in the Bayou State was in 2016.
Duncan was one of 55 people on death row in Louisiana at the state prison known as Angola. Louisiana carried out its first execution in 15 years earlier 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 that the child, who had a history of seizures, likely drowned accidentally.
A Louisiana corrections officer looks out from a tower by Camp 57 at Angola Prison, the Louisiana State Penitentiary and America’s largest maximum-security prison farm. (Getty Images)
Statham said her daughter “wasn’t killed,” stressing that “Haley died because she was sick.”
She told the court that the lives of her family and Duncan “have been destroyed by the lie” she says prosecutors and forensic experts had made up.
Prosecutors had relied heavily on bite-mark analysis and autopsy findings from forensic dentist Michael West and pathologist Steven Hayne — two experts later tied to multiple overturned convictions.
Defense attorneys said a video of the autopsy shows West pressing a dental mold into the toddler’s skin, creating the very 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 that they put out and desecrated my baby’s memory makes me infuriated,” Statham said.
“I was not informed of anything that would have exonerated Mr. Duncan at all,” she continued. “Had I been then, things would have turned out a lot different for Mr. Duncan and all of our families.”
In the last 25 years, there have been at least two dozen wrongful convictions or charges that relied 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 M. Chris Fabricant blasted the forensic methods used in the case, telling the court that “bite-mark evidence is junk science” and remains among the most prejudicial forms of flawed forensic testimony still admitted in U.S. courts.
West and Hayne’s work has been linked to several wrongful convictions, including those of Mississippi men Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer, who served a combined 30 years before DNA evidence cleared them.
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Despite the new revelations, prosecutors are still seeking to reinstate Duncan’s conviction and have cited the original 1994 grand jury indictment in arguing he should remain incarcerated.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.