Politics over justice? Missouri AG delays man’s chance at justice after unfair trial | Opinion

Much like his predecessors, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s stall game is immaculate. Before Bailey was appointed last year by Gov. Mike Parson, the AG office routinely challenged wrongful convictions that keep innocent prisoners behind bars far too long.

Bailey is running for a full term in 2024. He obviously received the in-house memo from former Republican Missouri attorneys general and current U.S. senators Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt

These delay tactics might score cheap political points in Republican circles but do little to administer the justice Bailey took an oath to pursue.

Each day Bailey’s office fails to respond to new claims from Ken Middleton, a former over-the-road truck driver from Blue Springs, that his constitutional rights were violated in a 1991 first-degree murder trial, the longer Middleton has to wait for a new trial — or possible release from a state penitentiary.

And that is not how the American justice system should work. Even accused criminals have the right to a fair trial.

Last week, the attorney general’s office sought its second extension to respond to a habeas corpus petition filed by Middleton’s appellate attorney Kent E. Gipson, according to court records.

In a legal brief filed Dec. 15 by Assistant Attorney General Andrew Clarke, the state asked DeKalb County Circuit Judge Ryan Wesley Horsman to grant the AG’s office until at least Jan. 12 to file its response.

Clarke needed additional time to review records submitted by Middleton’s defense team, Clarke wrote.

“Undersigned counsel has received additional records and has begun reviewing them, but the records are voluminous and counsel needs additional time to fully examine them,” he wrote.

Gipson filed the legal motion with the Missouri Supreme Court in July. In it, he claims Middleton’s assets were illegally frozen prior to his original trial by then assistant prosecutor Patrick W. Peters, a private attorney who died from cryptococcal meningitis in 2017 at age 62.

The legal filing also makes other serious claims against Peters the Missouri Supreme Court should consider, including prosecutorial misconduct and a conflict of interest.

I reached out to Bailey’s office for a comment. I wanted to know what legal justification existed to fight this case. By early Tuesday, I hadn’t heard back.

Gipson wants a new trial or to have Middleton’s life sentence vacated. In the latest legal motion filed in the case, Gipson cites Luis v. United States, a 2016 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that could weigh in Middleton”s favor.

By freezing untainted assets — Middleton’s modest wealth was accumulated legally, Gipson says — the government violates a criminal defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel of choice.

Evidence presented in previous post-conviction hearings shows Peters ordered Middleton’s assets frozen as a condition of his bond, according to court documents.

Son ‘fighting my entire adult life’ to free father

Middleton has been behind bars for 33 years. His son, Cliff Middleton, maintains that his father was wrongfully convicted of murder and armed criminal action in the 1990 fatal shooting of wife Kathy Middleton.

Before the Luis case, no legal basis existed for Ken Middleton to present a Sixth Amendment violation argument in court, Gipson said.

“This is our avenue,” he said.

For nearly two decades, Cliff Middleton has fought for Ken’s release. Cliff refuses to let up until his 79-year-old father walks out of Crossroads Correctional Center in Cameron as a free man.

“I have been fighting my entire adult life in the hope it would bring change to an appellate system that recognizes wrongful convictions and I and everyone else should encourage the attorney general’s office to concede when they see one,” Cliff said.

I’ve written before about the unusual circumstances — a legal technicality, Cliff often says — that have kept Ken in prison.

Our editorial board called for Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker to use her authority to ask a judge to look into Ken’s claims of innocence. Baker’s office has reviewed the case multiple times and doesn’t plan to move forward, spokesman Mike Mansur told me.

Baker’s senior adviser Edith Messina presided over Ken’s original trial in 1991 and a two-day evidentiary hearing in 2005.

Messina found credible evidence that Ken’s defense attorney Bob Duncan was ineffective at trial. During the appeals process in 1992, Duncan was stripped of his law license for tax evasion, according to court records.

Back then, Messina set aside Ken’s life sentence and ordered a new trial.

Twice, I’ve requested to speak with Messina about this case. I wanted to know if she still believes evidence proves Ken deserves a new trial. Both times, I was turned down.

Make it three times.

“Nothing’s changed,” Mansur wrote in an email.

The attorney general’s office appealed. The state successfully argued Messina did not have the authority to grant a retrial.

Messina’s 2005 ruling was overturned on procedural grounds by the state’s appellate court. Because of this, Ken has not been granted any legal recourse to prove his claims of innocence in open court. He has remained behind bars since.

Unless the state’s highest court acts, or he receives a commuted sentence or a pardon from Missouri Gov. Mike Parson — two unlikely scenarios, Cliff Middleton told me — Ken could very well die in prison.

Tried to overturn ex-KCPD officer DeValkenaere’s conviction

Usually without exception, Missouri attorneys general fight to keep convicted killers such as former Kansas City police detective Eric DeValkenaere in prison, not set them free.

In 2019, the ex-officer fatally shot Cameron Lamb in the backyard of a home in the 4100 block of College Avenue in Kansas City.

During a bench trial two years later, Jackson County Circuit Judge J. Dale Youngs found DeValkenaere guilty of second-degree involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action.

Police officers at the scene had no legal right to be on the property, Youngs ruled. He found DeValkenaere criminally liable for Lamb’s death and sentenced him to six years in prison.

In an unprecedented move, Bailey sought to overturn DeValkenaere’s conviction. But a subsequent appeal was denied. On Tuesday, the state Supreme Court did not issue a ruling on whether it would take up the case.

On X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, Bailey once wrote he would “never apologize for using every weapon in my arsenal to defend Missourians and our beloved Constitution.”

He filed the brief in support of DeValkenaere the same day.

Cliff Middleton noted the tweet and called out Bailey’s hypocrisy.

“If that tweet is true,” Cliff said, “Ken Middleton is a Missourian whose constitutional rights were ruled to be violated in a court of law over 18 years ago. Shouldn’t the AG then concede to our petition? If not, why not? Because he’s not a cop? The AG’s position gives the appearance that police are entitled to a better justice system than the rest of us.

“If he wants to dispel that appearance he should step up for dad.”

Cliff Middleton is right.

If Bailey was a true arbiter of justice, he’d fight to free those convicted but didn’t receive a fair trial, like Ken Middleton, instead of protecting convicted former cops.