MISSOURI SHAMEFUL SECRET: SIXTY SIX YEARS OF FIGHTING INNOCENCE! (Part 1 of 6)

The Systemic Pattern of the Missouri Attorney General's Office ★ The Jeffrey Weinhaus Story

[On July 11th, Jeffrey will have been locked up for 5,000 days. To mark this milestone, this series will begin tomorrow and run consecutively up until the eve of that sad anniversary.]

​The Missouri Attorney General’s Office maintains a decades-long pattern of prioritizing procedural finality over factual innocence. Across multiple administrations—both Democrat and Republican—the office has defended over 150,000 convictions without formally admitting a single error, even in the face of absolute exoneration evidence.

​This systemic policy is clear in the case of Sandra Hemme, who was detained by the AG's office even after three courts ruled she did not commit the crime, requiring a judge to threaten contempt to secure her release. During the appellate proceedings for Joseph Amrine, the office formally argued before the state Supreme Court that procedural finality required execution even if a defendant possesses a valid claim of actual innocence.

​Furthermore, the AG actively prolonged the imprisonments of Christopher Dunn and Kevin Strickland by appealing evidentiary overrules long after local prosecutors acknowledged the wrong individuals were convicted. Similarly, the overturned conviction of Donald Nash later resulted in a $34 million federal verdict against the state due to fabricated DNA evidence.

These high-profile exonerations are not isolated missteps, but the public-facing evidence of a deeply entrenched institutional policy. While the names change, the playbook remains identical.

Tomorrow, Part Two of this series reveals how these exact same systemic tactics were deployed against Jeffrey Weinhaus, turning the machinery of the state against a journalist who dared to expose it.

— Vincent Easley II

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