Now that the State Supreme Court has upheld a lower court’s decision to throw out the first-degree murder conviction against a former death row inmate, where does the case go from here? Ann Ferebee is one of the lawyers representing Jimmie Duncan, who spent 27 years on death row for the death of his ex-girlfriend’s 23-month-old daughter. She says despite the conviction being thrown out, Duncan is not out of the woods just yet.
“At the oral arguments at the end of April, District Attorney Steve Tew did indicate that the state would intend to continue forward with some sort of charges. He couldn’t identify what exactly those would be,” Ferebee explained.
Ferebee says whatever prosecutors decide, the clock is ticking.
“They have a year to start any new trial if they choose to go that route, but we won’t know their decision until and unless they tell us,” Ferebee noted.
Ferebee says the West Monroe man’s story from the December 1993 incident has remained consistent – Duncan says he was giving Haley Oliveaux a bath; and as he stepped away briefly to wash some dishes, he heard a splash in the bathtub and found the little girl unconscious. While new evidence suggests Haley likely died from a seizure while in the tub, prosecutors used now-discredited evidence to claim that Duncan sexually assaulted her. Ferebee says it will be up to the prosecution to decide how to proceed.
“They can choose to retry him on the same charges; they can choose to try him on him on different charges based on the same facts, or other charges based on other facts,” Ferebee said.
Ferebee says if prosecutors seek to try him for negligent homicide, they’d be wasting their time, since Duncan has already served three times the maximum prison sentence for that charge.
Comments