A judge in southwest Missouri’s Greene County has held the acting Director of the state Department of Corrections in contempt of court for not releasing an elderly prison inmate whose conviction was overturned.
Howard Roberts, 82, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for financial exploitation, but his sentence was tossed out in June after a review showed that records and testimony omitted from his trial could have resulted in an innocent verdict. Greene County Senior Circuit Judge David Jones overturned Roberts’ conviction and ordered him released, but Attorney General Andrew Bailey called the warden at South Central Correctional Center in Licking and told him to keep Roberts locked up, according to the Kansas City Star.
As a result, acting Department of Corrections Director Trevor Foley was found in contempt of court and has until Wednesday to release Roberts, otherwise Foley will be fined $1,000 per day.
Bailey attempted to keep two other people imprisoned whose convictions were overturned this year. Sandra Hemme’s murder conviction and life sentence were vacated after a judge ruled that evidence pointed to a now-deceased St. Joseph police officer as being the killer. A St. Louis judge overturned Christopher Dunn’s murder conviction and life sentence after ruling there was evidence of “actual innocence.”
Bailey kept both Hemme and Dunn imprisoned as his office appealed the lower court rulings to the appeals courts and to the Missouri Supreme Court. The high court issued rulings in both cases that led to Hemme and Dunn being set free.
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