Senate bill would expand who can appeal based on innocence

BY CAOILINN GOSS

Missouri News Network

JEFFERSON CITY — Witnesses gave passionate testimony at a Missouri Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Monday in favor of a bill that would allow people serving life sentences to present evidence of their innocence and petition the court for release.

Among those witnesses was Ryan Ferguson, who was wrongfully convicted of the 2001 murder of former Columbia Daily Tribune sports editor Kent Heitholt. Ferguson was exonerated in 2013 after the Missouri Court of Appeals found the state had unconstitutionally withheld evidence. He said all innocent people should be granted the same opportunity to petition the court.

“I was lucky,” Ferguson said. “I was very lucky that we could find error — wrongdoing — to overturn my wrongful conviction. But not everyone who was wrongfully convicted has constitutional violations.”

Midwest Innocence Project Executive Director Tricia Rojo Bushnell also testified in support of SB 1201. Rojo Busnell represented Kevin Strickland, who was released 42 years after being wrongly convicted of three murders.

“The bill that passed last year that provided for Kevin Strickland was a bill that permits prosecutors to file a motion that would overturn a conviction if they can prove by clear and convincing evidence,” Rojo Bushnell said. “What this bill allows is for the defendant — if the defendant can prove by clear and convincing evidence — the ability to be in court.”

Another wrongfully convicted Missourian, Ricky Kidd, also testified in support of the bill.

“In the state of Missouri, the law as it currently stands says that innocence is not enough if you’re not sentenced to death,” Kidd said.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. John Rizzo, D-Independence, said the new bill would afford those with life sentences the same opportunities that death row inmates have to petition the court.

“I think that as this body showed last year, in both chambers that there is a big appetite for wanting to get it right,” Rizzo said.

Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys Executive Director Darrell Moore testified for informational purposes, stating that while some adjustments were needed, “We support the concept of this bill.”