Belton Missouri Criminal Defense Law Blog

While there are high-profile and sensational stories involving wrongful convictions that make national news, there was little data about the total amount of people incarcerated for crimes they did not commit. One study sought to change this, and Missouri residents might like to know the results of the study.

In a study surveying 3,000 incoming prisoners in Pennsylvania, six percent reported a wrongful conviction. This is the first research that looked at convictions for charges that range from serious to minor and included charges of drug possession, armed robbery and theft. The false conviction rate of rape, murder and other capital crimes is thought to be at around 3-5 percent of cases.

The wrongly convicted often experience extensive challenges when trying to clear their names and gain freedom. One such example of false incarceration may have happened to a Missouri man who has spent nearly 25 years in prison. The struggles Lamar Johnson faces are particularly interesting because he may have little hope of being released even though people in the prosecutor's office are not convinced of his guilt.

Johnson, a 45-year-old man from St. Louis, was sentenced to life without parole for the murder of Marcus Boyd in 1994. Perhaps due to a dispute about drugs, two masked men shot and killed Boyd on the porch at his apartment. Since Johnson's conviction, two other men have signed sworn affidavits stating that they killed Boyd without Johnson's involvement.

A Missouri woman was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole on Aug. 12 for the 2016 slaying of mentally handicapped man in St. Charles County. The woman could have faced the death penalty if she had been convicted after a trial, but she avoided that fate by entering what is known as an Alford plea in 2017. When a defendant enters an Alford plea, they maintain their innocence but accept that prosecutors have enough evidence to prove their guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

Prosecutors say that the woman lured the victim to her O'Fallon residence and then shot him when he arrived. She initially told police that the man had broken into her home and she killed him in self-defense. Police believe that the woman killed the man to frame another individual who was convicted and then acquitted of killing his wife in 2011.

A Missouri woman is facing murder charges in connection with a man's drug overdose in late July. The defendant, who is a resident of Eldon, was arrested on Aug. 1.

According to a probable cause statement by the Eldon Police Department, officers were called to the defendant's home on July 27. When they arrived, they found an unresponsive man lying on the floor. The Miller County coroner was called to the scene and pronounced the man dead. Autopsy results have not yet been released, but the man is believed to have died of a heroin overdose.