Strangers have raised $1.5 million for a Missouri man who served more than 40 years behind bars for a triple murder he did not commit.
Kevin Strickland, 62, thanked donors for their generosity but said that his community did not owe him anything - rather the justice system.
'The courts failed me and that's who should be trying to make my life a little more comfortable,' he said. 'I really do appreciate the donations and contributions they made to try to help me acclimate to society.'
Strickland was released last Tuesday and doesn't even yet have a bank account for the funds to be transferred to.
He was convicted in 1979 of killing three people in Kansas City the year before: Sherrie Black, 22; Larry Ingram, 21; and John Walker, 20.
The only witness had picked him from a police lineup and Strickland was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 50 years.
Another man who pleaded guilty to the murders told prosecutors that Strickland played no part in the killings and the eyewitness later withdrew her testimony against him.
Kevin Strickland, 62, managed a smile while talking to the media after his release from prison, Tuesday, Nov. 23, 2021, in Cameron, Mo. Strickland, who was jailed for more than 40 years for three murders, was released from prison Tuesday after a judge ruled that he was wrongfully convicted in 1979. (Rich Sugg/The Kansas City Star via AP)
Strickland is pictured at the time of his arrest in 1978, when he was 18. A witness who identified him as a suspect later recanted
Strickland (right) argued that he had an alibi for the night of the murders: he was watching TV with his older brother (left) and talking on the phone with his girlfriend
He said his four days back in Kansas City so far had been hard to comprehend.
Strickland described the colossal highways around the city as dizzying.
He was taken to the Independence Center mall where someone gave him $25.
The former inmate said he was going to buy cough drops and a shower cap.
The online fundraiser was organized by the Midwest Innocence Project, headed by Tricia Rojo Bushnell, one of his lawyers.
'I think for all of us it's hopeful, right?' Bushnell told The New York Times. 'Until the system has changed where the system is failing, the community is stepping in to fix it, to fill the void. It's pretty amazing.'
Strickland said he learned the news he was going to be exonerated when it scrolled across the TV screen while he was watching a soap.
He said his fellow inmates began screaming at the news.
'I'm not necessarily angry. It's a lot. I think I've created emotions that you all don't know about just yet,' he told reporters as he left the Western Missouri Correctional Center in Cameron.
'Joy, sorrow, fear. I am trying to figure out how to put them together.'
He said he would like to get involved in efforts to 'keep this from happening to someone else,' saying the criminal justice system 'needs to be torn down and redone.'
Federal prosecutors in the Western District of Missouri, Jackson County´s presiding judge, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas and members of the team that convicted Strickland four decades ago all lobbied for his exoneration.
Judge James Welsh, a retired Missouri Court of Appeals judge, ruled Strickland was free after a three-day evidentiary hearing requested by a county prosecutor who said evidence used to convict him had since been recanted or disproven.
Strickland was convicted in 1979 of capital and second-degree murder stemming from a triple homicide at this home in Kansas City, Missouri
Welsh wrote in his judgement that 'clear and convincing evidence' was presented that 'undermines the Court´s confidence in the judgement of conviction.'
He added that no physical evidence linked Strickland to the crime scene and that a key witness recanted before her death.
'Under these unique circumstances, the Court´s confidence in Strickland´s convictions is so undermined that it cannot stand, and the judgment of conviction must be set aside,' Welsh wrote in ordering Strickland's immediate release.
Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker, who pushed for Strickland's freedom, moved quickly to dismiss the criminal charges against him so he could get out of prison.
'To say we're extremely pleased and grateful is an understatement,' she said in a statement. 'This brings justice - finally - to a man who has tragically suffered so so greatly as a result of this wrongful conviction.'
But Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican now running for a United States Senate seat in 2022, said Strickland was guilty and had fought to keep him incarcerated.
'In this case, we defended the rule of law and the decision that a jury of Mr. Strickland's peers made after hearing all of the facts in the case,' Schmitt spokesman Chris Nuelle said in a brief statement. 'The Court has spoken, no further action will be taken in this matter.'
Gov. Mike Parson, who declined Strickland´s clemency requests, tweeted: 'The Court has made its decision, we respect the decision, and the Department of Corrections will proceed with Mr. Strickland´s release immediately.'
Strickland was largely convicted on the basis of testimony from Cynthia Douglas, the only person to survive the April 25, 1978, shootings.
She initially identified Strickland as one of four men who shot the victims and testified to that during his two trials.
Then 18, Kevin Strickland, far right, stands for a lineup April 26, 1978, at the Kansas City Police Department. Cynthia Douglas, the lone eyewitness to the shooting, identified Strickland at the lineup, but later told relatives she was pressured into doing so
Welsh wrote that she had doubts soon after the conviction but initially was 'hesitant to act because she feared she could face perjury charges if she were to publicly recant statements previously made under oath.'
She later said she was pressured by police to choose Strickland and tried for years to alert political and legal experts to help her prove she had identified the wrong man, according to testimony during the hearing from her family, friends and a co-worker. Douglas died in 2015.
During the hearing, attorneys for the Missouri Attorney General's office argued that Strickland's advocates had not provided a paper trail that proved Douglas tried to recant her identification of Strickland, saying the theory was based on 'hearsay.'
The judge also noted that two other men convicted in the killings later insisted Strickland wasn't involved. They named two other suspects who were never charged.
During his testimony, Strickland denied suggestions that he offered Douglas $300 to 'keep her mouth shut,' and said he had never visited the house where the murders occurred before they happened.
Strickland is black, and his first trial ended in a hung jury when the only black juror, a woman, held out for acquittal. After his second trial in 1979, he was convicted by an all-white jury of one count of capital murder and two counts of second-degree murder.
Strickland said he hopes to fight to make sure this never happens to anyone ever again
In May, Peters Baker announced that a review of the case led her to believe that Strickland was innocent.
In June, the Missouri Supreme Court declined to hear Strickland's petition.
In August, Peters Baker used a new state law to seek the evidentiary hearing in Jackson County, where Strickland was convicted.
The law allows local prosecutors to challenge convictions if they believe the defendant did not commit the crime. It was the first time - and so far the only time - that a prosecutor has used the law to fight a previous conviction.
'Even when the prosecutor is on your side, it took months and months for Mr. Strickland to come home and he still had to come home to a system that will not provide him any compensation for the 43 years he lost,' said Tricia Rojo Bushnell, executive director of the Midwest Innocence Project, who stood by Strickland's side as he was released.
The state only allows wrongful imprisonment payments to people exonerated through DNA evidence, so Strickland doesn´t qualify.
'That is not justice,' she said. 'I think we are hopeful that folks are paying so much attention and really asking the question of `What should our system of justice look like?'
Post a Comment