Louisiana Man on Death Row Released After 27 Years By Christine Pelisek

A Louisiana man who spent 27 years on death row was granted bail Wednesday, Nov. 26, after his murder conviction was overturned.

Jimmie Duncan was found guilty of first-degree murder in connection with the death of his girlfriend’s 23-month-old daughter, Haley Oliveaux, in 1998, Associated Press reported.

He was accused of raping the infant before drowning her in a bathtub, per AP.

His release comes after Fourth Judicial District Court Judge Alvin Sharp ruled last spring that forensic evidence, including bite mark analysis presented during his trial, was “not scientifically defensible,” according to AP.

Sharp also concluded that the child’s death appeared to be caused by accidental drowning, per AP.

“The presumption is not great that he is guilty,” Fourth Judicial District Court Judge Alvin Sharp wrote Friday, Nov. 21, referencing new evidence that was revealed at an evidentiary hearing last year, per AP.

“Mr. Duncan’s release marks a significant step forward in his decades-long fight for justice — but the fight is not over,” said Chris Fabricant, Mr. Duncan’s Innocence Project attorney, in a press release. “Mr. Duncan’s incarceration was a gross miscarriage of justice — his execution would have been a moral outrage.”

The charge against Duncan “was based entirely on junk science,” per an Innocence Project press release.

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According to the press release, the jury in the 90s never saw “the stark evidence of forensic fraud, including a videotape of Dr. [Michael] West using a mold of Mr. Duncan’s teeth to create the “bite marks” on Haley’s body that were “matched” to Mr. Duncan at trial.”

The child’s mother, Allison Layton Statham, told the judge during a bail hearing last week that she now thinks her daughter, who suffered from seizures, “wasn’t killed” but accidentally drowned in the bathtub, Fox News reported.

Her daughter died “because she was sick,“ she said, per Fox News.

“The horror story that they put out and desecrated my baby’s memory makes me infuriated,” Statham said, per AP. “I was not informed of anything that would have exonerated Mr. Duncan at all. Had I been then, things would have turned out a lot different for Mr. Duncan and all of our families.”

According to the Innocence Project, Hailey suffered a series of seizures and head injuries in the weeks before her 1993 death, which required hospitalization.

Prosecutors are fighting to reinstate Duncan’s conviction, according to Fox News. Prosecutors could not be reached for comment.

Duncan was one of 55 people on Louisiana’s death row, per AP.

Duncan has been released on a $150,000 bond, per KLFY.