November 28, 2025 • 17 mins
Just in time for Thanksgiving, Jimmy Duncan is home with his family after a judge vacated his 1st degree murder conviction and released him from prison this week. Duncan was set to die for the rape and drowning death of a 23-month-old girl, whose mother now believes died accidentally, and not at the hands of her ex-boyfriend. Amy and T.J. go over the allegations of prosecutorial misconduct that set Duncan free and his fight to be fully exonerated.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey there, everybody. It is Friday, November the twenty eighth,
and a man in Louisiana spent Thanksgiving at home with
family for the first time in thirty years. Where has
he been all that time? Death Row? And with that,
welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Roades. We
have been covering a whole bunch of executions this year,
(00:24):
and this is a case for an argument for why
maybe some could say the death penalty should go away.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yes, And this is one of a couple we've seen
this year where folks have or at least are on
their way to being exonerated, but certainly having their death
sentences vacated. And this man, Jimmy Duncan, is now free
in the state of Louisiana. We nearly killed this man,
and when you start to read how he got convicted,
(00:54):
it will make your blood boil and your heart will
go out to not only Jimmy Duncan, but the mother
of the young girl he was convicted of killing.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
And as we're saying all this though, the other side,
the prosecutors still think this dude should be in jail, yes,
and are still fighting there were fighting to keep him there.
But the judge said, you can go home while we
figure the rest of this out. But the judge essentially
saying no, from what I'm saying, it doesn't look like
there's a preponderance of evidence that you're going to be
found guilty, So why don't you just go home while
(01:26):
the review continues? This is thirty years this man has
been on death row and who knew Louisiana is notorious
for this exactly, So this is not the first time
we've seen something like this in Louisiana, for sure, But
this is a case Jimmy, how many years thirty.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Twenty seven years exactly? He was on death row.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Okay, so we've been doing these stories. That was another
one thirty seven, yes, thirty eight years on death row.
And maybe this is why we do all the reviews.
Maybe this is why it takes decades so we make
sure we get it right. But we were just about
to get through the wrong man.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
And I'm telling you at his he had a we
had a bond hearing this week. Again. This was his
ex girlfriend from way back when the mother of the
twenty three month old little girl who died in her bathtub.
She said this about prosecutors on a microphone in open court.
The horror story that they put out and desecrated my
(02:19):
baby's memory makes me infuriated.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yeah, I mean, you're all these years you've been honoring
in some way or mourning your child based on a tragedy,
based on a monster, based on this thing that happened. Yes,
that's a part of a memory you will have and
a part of how you continue to go about your life.
You would go about it differently if you thought your
child died in an accident versus was taken correct, murderer.
(02:45):
This is thirty years of these people's lives that they
say the prosecution, the government has taken from them.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Yes, and specifically too forensic scientists. This story is incredible
when you start to hear the details. So Jimmy was
convicted of first degree murder. This happened back in nineteen
ninety eight. Prosecutors said he raped and drowned twenty three
month old Hayley Olivo, that is the daughter of his
(03:12):
then girlfriend. Duncan maintained his innocence from the beginning. He
claims that he briefly stepped away from this little girl
in the bathtub, and when he came back, he saw
that she had gone under. He says he gave her
CPR as much as he could, then ran to neighbors
to get help immediately. But what happened next was his
undoing in terms of prosecutors, detectives coming in and making
(03:36):
all sorts of assumptions when they took that little baby's
body in for an autopsy, and basically the expert testimony
at his trial. There were two forensic scientists, and we'll
get into these two people because they are notorious at
this point now. But these experts were later linked to
at least ten wrongful convictions. But he was basically convicted
(04:00):
because they claimed there were bite marks on this little
girl's body. But there is video that had surfaced, a
recording of the autopsy that shows these one of the
two scientists forcibly pushing a mold of Duncan's teeth into
this little girl's body, creating the bite marks that they
then later used to convict him with.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Okay, this is where I get confused, because there's an
argument that this was some method that is used to
examine or match, if you will, bite marks. I don't
understand that at all. But the argument here what you
described there and as with this video, you're talking about
a man being framed for murder and ending up on
(04:44):
death row. That can't happen.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Correct, Correct, And speaking of these two, one of these
pathologists and forensic dentists, one of them has already since
passed away. But when I said ten wrongful convictions, I
read about this and it's just remarkable to see that
these two were and have been accused of doing this
in multiple in multiple cases, specifically in the South Louisiana, Mississippi.
(05:10):
Up these pairs testimony led to two Mississippi men serving
and combined three decades in prison for rape and murder
a very similar situation, and DNA evidence later decades later
cleared them of the crime. So it was a rush
to try and pin a murder on someone and these
two men had been doing it for decades, and there
(05:30):
are so many cases attributed specifically to these two men.
And so the judge throughout this conviction. Twenty seven years later,
again this man was on death row.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Yeah he hasn't. I don't know how what the next
legal move is, but he has not been exonerated. This
is a guy they could still try to go after.
At least they're saying they're trying to still go after it.
There's a lot of legal review. I thought it was interesting.
The judge must have felt strongly enough about it that
this is a guy who was still under investigation for
(06:03):
the murder of a child, at least according to the government,
according to prosecutors. And a judge said, as heinous as
that accusation sounds, the stuff in front of a judge
made him feel strongly and that you know, a judge
doesn't want to hell. The judge wuldn't put ditty out.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
This is so rare that this would happen.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
So a guy who has been accused of murdering a
twenty three month old A judge says, I'm okay with
him going home?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Correct?
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Why you continue to figure this out? That's a pretty
strong indication of the case in front of him.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Yes, his exact wording was, the presumption is not great
that he is guilty. That is a powerful, powerful statement.
And Duncan's attorneys said that there is clear and convincing
evidence showing that mister Duncan is factually innocent. So you know,
you've got two powerful people here, and so yes, this
Louisiana Supreme Court is still reviewing his case because the
(06:55):
prosecutors are not letting this go. And look, we see
this happen. You have a conviction. And a lot of
these are elected officials in some of these positions attorney general, etc.
They don't want to admit fault. They don't want to
admit wrongdoing. They don't want to admit that they put
someone in or behind bars on death row for a
crime they didn't commit. Not just to save face, but
(07:17):
this is financially a situation for the state of Louisiana
as well, because, as you might imagine, if you have
spent all that time, lost most of your adult life
behind bars for a crime you didn't commit by a
state that the accusation is created false evidence to put
you there. You're talking about millions and millions and millions
of dollars in lawsuits and judgments against you.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Okay, fine, we got it wrong. I'm not going to
fight to save millions of dollars so I can keep
an innocent man in jail. That's just not what we
do now. It's human nature. We've seen this with plenty
of elected as elected officials and law enforcement. You don't
want to admit to that mistake. We've seen people go
to the grave swearing that Nope, that person is skilled,
(08:00):
see and that person ends up being exonerate. This happens,
and that's human nature. That's fine. We got to get
over and get past that when you talk about a
man's life. Yes, and this is not just time behind bars.
We the people, at least the people in Louisiana, decided
this man should die. So this is beyond just having
(08:20):
a guy in jail for a wrongful conviction. We're about to.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Kill a guy, yes, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
We need to get this one right.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
So what does this little girl's mother and what do
the defense and perhaps even the judge believe happened to
little Haley. Well, this is what actually we understand now.
Hailey died because she was sick. That is what her
mother told the court this week. And that is because
she had a history of seizures and just I believe
(08:47):
a few weeks earlier through some of those seizures had fallen.
She had hit her head. She had been in the
hospital with skull fractures. So this was a sick little girl.
And according to her mother now and other medical professionals,
when you have a child who's prone to seizures, putting
them in a warm bath can actually trigger more seizures.
So it's very likely that when he stepped away, and
(09:09):
obviously we know we're never supposed to step away from
a child at a bathtub, it's likely she may have
had a seizure and drowned and had nothing to do
with Duncan, And so her mother now believes that. But yes,
to your point, you said this earlier, to know or
to believe that someone who you loved, who you brought
into your home, who was your boyfriend, to be told
that that person murdered your child, violated your child, and
(09:33):
to live with that, and then to find out that
that evidence wasn't true, that what prosecutors told this grieving
mother wasn't true. The anger you would feel on top
of the grief is beyond I.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Don't know if they have an option, and this has
happened in the past, but I feel like she should
have a right to sue. We've seen inmates get millions
of dollars for wrongful convictions. Man, this family should have
some kind of recourse. They should have some kind of
way to get back the past thirty years. If this
is the case, then they were victimized by the government.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Yes, and we obviously mentioned these two forensic scientists who
there's this video of them putting his dental mold onto
those little girl. The AP actually did a review almost
more than ten years ago about bite mark evidence. At
least two dozen wrongful convictions have happened because of this
(10:30):
way of I don't really understand it either, Babe, like
the way why they do this or how they use it.
But apparently the Innocence Project said bite mark evidence is
junk science. We've seen this in other wrongful conviction cases.
We've seen this in other inmates who have been free
just before their scheduled execution. But they're saying this is
junk science. They say there's no more prejudicial type of
(10:53):
junk science that exists than bite mark evidence. So their
question of the Innocence Project is actually because of this
case and others really trying to make an awareness campaign
about this, why it's allowed in courtroom still to this day,
given all the evidence we see of what it's led to,
which is wrongful commition.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Plenty of people who will point to this. I can
point to some episodes of Snapped and whatnot, and which absolutely,
the people have been convicted because they matched up bite marks.
So it's yes, I will listen to any expert, But
at the same time, I don't know what the balance
is and what this method is they use between actual
science and I know that bite marks have absolutely been
(11:33):
used in cases. So what were they doing that was different?
I just saw the word use method, This method they
used as if something they were doing was at least
at the time, legit, and maybe we found out we
shouldn't be doing. I couldn't understand what they meant by
this method they used. It didn't sound like a method.
It sounded like a setup to me.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Yeah, I was floored reading about this and into this,
And these are the types of cases that do bring
our attention to places where obviously we have some room
to grow in our judicial system, and certainly there are
a lot of folks who have paid the price for that.
When we come back, we're going to tell you you
mentioned this earlier in the episode about the state of Louisiana,
(12:15):
specifically their track record. It is one to pay attention
to and also will tell you what Duncan is going
to do now while he awaits that decision from the
Louisiana Supreme Court. Continuing our conversation about this latest case
(12:39):
out of Louisiana, where Jimmy Duncan, a man who spent
twenty seven years on death row, is now a freeman,
spent Thanksgiving with his family after he was convicted of
raping and murdering his then girlfriend's twenty three month old baby.
There was a lot to unpack in this case, but
a judge felt very or that this was a situation
(13:02):
in which this man needed to be released while he
awaits whether or not he will be fully exonerated by
the Louisiana Supreme Corp. With this, judge vacated his conviction
and set him free again after nearly three decades on
death row. Listen to this. Since nineteen seventy three, more
than two hundred people on death row have now been exonerated.
(13:23):
That is shocking, and in Louisiana, twelve people. It is
one of the highest wrongful conviction rates in the nation.
So that is something to pay attention to that we
are This isn't something we can reverse, This isn't something
we can say, sorry, we were wrong. When you're on
death row, there's no taking it back. If you have
(13:45):
an execution date, and we have certainly seen that happen posthumously,
which is incredibly It's tragic no matter what. But we
can't get it right once we've gotten it wrong. And
thank god, this man, Jimmy Duncan, was finely given some
sort of reprieve.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Do you have a case, Do you have a case?
I'm trying to think of one. It would have been
pretty high profile in which we have proven that we
killed a guy who was innocent.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Oh, there are cases I just haven't looked up. But yes,
we could do a whole podcast on that which we've.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Killed that have been proven after the fact to be innocent,
and that this country executed someone wrongly. Yeah, I mean,
I'm trying to think. I cannot remember when I figured
it to be very high profile. We talk about the
two hundred whatnot that have been exagner right after being
on death row. Some might point to that as the
(14:37):
system working. Some might point to that, see, we got
it right before we made a mistake. Sure we might
have gotten it wrong initially, but all of these checks
and balances are in place, with all the appeals to
make sure we get it right. And look, we haven't
been killing people who are innocent. I'm saying the other
side could make that.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Argument, of course, and certainly people have their strong opinions
about the death penalty and whether or not it's effective
and whether or not it is just punishment. The problem
is we have an imperfect system and we don't have
the absolute facts always in cases, and this is exactly
an example of that, and will point to this. In Louisiana.
(15:15):
Just two weeks ago, we did an episode on this.
We had Calvin Duncan. He had been behind bars for decades.
He was not on death row, but he was convicted
of murder. He was exonerated and just won an election
to serve as the Clerk of Courts in New Orleans
in their criminal courts. So you can just see someone
can go on to being behind bars for decades and
(15:38):
then actually serving our country in a beautiful way. So
they got it wrong then, and it looks like they
got it wrong on this one as well. So it's
just something to remember. Now. As far as Jimmy Duncan,
he plans to live with a relative in central Louisiana
and he is going. Can you imagine just waiting to
see if you have to go back. I mean, it's possible.
(15:58):
We don't know what the Supreme Court is going to
do in the state of Louisiana. He knows that it's
possible he could go back, and that's goind to just
be such an incredible situation mentally, after everything he's already
been through, you know.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
But it feels good where he is right now. And
if I could tell him anything, man, stay in the
moment today. You got today, You're not behind bars, and
that's all, and that's really all you can do. The
suit the money he is about to go after from
these folks. If that is true that he literally was
(16:33):
framed for murder that put him on death row, everybody
should be in jail for that.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Yeah, And we mentioned I totally agree and whatever. I
agree with that, And we mentioned about the bitemark forensic
science and it being junk science, and certainly the video
that shows them putting that dental mold onto the baby.
But also there was a pretty damning proof that they
coerced a jailhouse, you know, a prison inmate to testify
(17:01):
against him, who then later recanted what he said and
said he was coerced by prosecutors to turn evidence against
this man. So there was wrongdoing, it appears from start
to finish in this man's case, and we certainly hope
Jimmy Duncan had a phenomenal Thanksgiving dinner. And again, I
feel confident with this because when the baby's own mother,
(17:22):
who believed her ex boyfriend did this to her daughter,
is now completely convinced of his innocence. That means something
to me and I'm sure it had an impact on
the judge as well. So we appreciate you listening to
us as always on this Friday. Thank you so much.
I'm Amy Robock alongside TJ.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Holmes.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
We hope you all have a wonderful weekend.
Hey there, everybody. It is Friday, November the twenty eighth,
and a man in Louisiana spent Thanksgiving at home with
family for the first time in thirty years. Where has
he been all that time? Death Row? And with that,
welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Roades. We
have been covering a whole bunch of executions this year,
(00:24):
and this is a case for an argument for why
maybe some could say the death penalty should go away.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yes, And this is one of a couple we've seen
this year where folks have or at least are on
their way to being exonerated, but certainly having their death
sentences vacated. And this man, Jimmy Duncan, is now free
in the state of Louisiana. We nearly killed this man,
and when you start to read how he got convicted,
(00:54):
it will make your blood boil and your heart will
go out to not only Jimmy Duncan, but the mother
of the young girl he was convicted of killing.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
And as we're saying all this though, the other side,
the prosecutors still think this dude should be in jail, yes,
and are still fighting there were fighting to keep him there.
But the judge said, you can go home while we
figure the rest of this out. But the judge essentially
saying no, from what I'm saying, it doesn't look like
there's a preponderance of evidence that you're going to be
found guilty, So why don't you just go home while
(01:26):
the review continues? This is thirty years this man has
been on death row and who knew Louisiana is notorious
for this exactly, So this is not the first time
we've seen something like this in Louisiana, for sure, But
this is a case Jimmy, how many years thirty.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Twenty seven years exactly? He was on death row.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Okay, so we've been doing these stories. That was another
one thirty seven, yes, thirty eight years on death row.
And maybe this is why we do all the reviews.
Maybe this is why it takes decades so we make
sure we get it right. But we were just about
to get through the wrong man.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
And I'm telling you at his he had a we
had a bond hearing this week. Again. This was his
ex girlfriend from way back when the mother of the
twenty three month old little girl who died in her bathtub.
She said this about prosecutors on a microphone in open court.
The horror story that they put out and desecrated my
(02:19):
baby's memory makes me infuriated.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yeah, I mean, you're all these years you've been honoring
in some way or mourning your child based on a tragedy,
based on a monster, based on this thing that happened. Yes,
that's a part of a memory you will have and
a part of how you continue to go about your life.
You would go about it differently if you thought your
child died in an accident versus was taken correct, murderer.
(02:45):
This is thirty years of these people's lives that they
say the prosecution, the government has taken from them.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Yes, and specifically too forensic scientists. This story is incredible
when you start to hear the details. So Jimmy was
convicted of first degree murder. This happened back in nineteen
ninety eight. Prosecutors said he raped and drowned twenty three
month old Hayley Olivo, that is the daughter of his
(03:12):
then girlfriend. Duncan maintained his innocence from the beginning. He
claims that he briefly stepped away from this little girl
in the bathtub, and when he came back, he saw
that she had gone under. He says he gave her
CPR as much as he could, then ran to neighbors
to get help immediately. But what happened next was his
undoing in terms of prosecutors, detectives coming in and making
(03:36):
all sorts of assumptions when they took that little baby's
body in for an autopsy, and basically the expert testimony
at his trial. There were two forensic scientists, and we'll
get into these two people because they are notorious at
this point now. But these experts were later linked to
at least ten wrongful convictions. But he was basically convicted
(04:00):
because they claimed there were bite marks on this little
girl's body. But there is video that had surfaced, a
recording of the autopsy that shows these one of the
two scientists forcibly pushing a mold of Duncan's teeth into
this little girl's body, creating the bite marks that they
then later used to convict him with.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Okay, this is where I get confused, because there's an
argument that this was some method that is used to
examine or match, if you will, bite marks. I don't
understand that at all. But the argument here what you
described there and as with this video, you're talking about
a man being framed for murder and ending up on
(04:44):
death row. That can't happen.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Correct, Correct, And speaking of these two, one of these
pathologists and forensic dentists, one of them has already since
passed away. But when I said ten wrongful convictions, I
read about this and it's just remarkable to see that
these two were and have been accused of doing this
in multiple in multiple cases, specifically in the South Louisiana, Mississippi.
(05:10):
Up these pairs testimony led to two Mississippi men serving
and combined three decades in prison for rape and murder
a very similar situation, and DNA evidence later decades later
cleared them of the crime. So it was a rush
to try and pin a murder on someone and these
two men had been doing it for decades, and there
(05:30):
are so many cases attributed specifically to these two men.
And so the judge throughout this conviction. Twenty seven years later,
again this man was on death row.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Yeah he hasn't. I don't know how what the next
legal move is, but he has not been exonerated. This
is a guy they could still try to go after.
At least they're saying they're trying to still go after it.
There's a lot of legal review. I thought it was interesting.
The judge must have felt strongly enough about it that
this is a guy who was still under investigation for
(06:03):
the murder of a child, at least according to the government,
according to prosecutors. And a judge said, as heinous as
that accusation sounds, the stuff in front of a judge
made him feel strongly and that you know, a judge
doesn't want to hell. The judge wuldn't put ditty out.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
This is so rare that this would happen.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
So a guy who has been accused of murdering a
twenty three month old A judge says, I'm okay with
him going home?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Correct?
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Why you continue to figure this out? That's a pretty
strong indication of the case in front of him.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Yes, his exact wording was, the presumption is not great
that he is guilty. That is a powerful, powerful statement.
And Duncan's attorneys said that there is clear and convincing
evidence showing that mister Duncan is factually innocent. So you know,
you've got two powerful people here, and so yes, this
Louisiana Supreme Court is still reviewing his case because the
(06:55):
prosecutors are not letting this go. And look, we see
this happen. You have a conviction. And a lot of
these are elected officials in some of these positions attorney general, etc.
They don't want to admit fault. They don't want to
admit wrongdoing. They don't want to admit that they put
someone in or behind bars on death row for a
crime they didn't commit. Not just to save face, but
(07:17):
this is financially a situation for the state of Louisiana
as well, because, as you might imagine, if you have
spent all that time, lost most of your adult life
behind bars for a crime you didn't commit by a
state that the accusation is created false evidence to put
you there. You're talking about millions and millions and millions
of dollars in lawsuits and judgments against you.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Okay, fine, we got it wrong. I'm not going to
fight to save millions of dollars so I can keep
an innocent man in jail. That's just not what we
do now. It's human nature. We've seen this with plenty
of elected as elected officials and law enforcement. You don't
want to admit to that mistake. We've seen people go
to the grave swearing that Nope, that person is skilled,
(08:00):
see and that person ends up being exonerate. This happens,
and that's human nature. That's fine. We got to get
over and get past that when you talk about a
man's life. Yes, and this is not just time behind bars.
We the people, at least the people in Louisiana, decided
this man should die. So this is beyond just having
(08:20):
a guy in jail for a wrongful conviction. We're about to.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Kill a guy, yes, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
We need to get this one right.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
So what does this little girl's mother and what do
the defense and perhaps even the judge believe happened to
little Haley. Well, this is what actually we understand now.
Hailey died because she was sick. That is what her
mother told the court this week. And that is because
she had a history of seizures and just I believe
(08:47):
a few weeks earlier through some of those seizures had fallen.
She had hit her head. She had been in the
hospital with skull fractures. So this was a sick little girl.
And according to her mother now and other medical professionals,
when you have a child who's prone to seizures, putting
them in a warm bath can actually trigger more seizures.
So it's very likely that when he stepped away, and
(09:09):
obviously we know we're never supposed to step away from
a child at a bathtub, it's likely she may have
had a seizure and drowned and had nothing to do
with Duncan, And so her mother now believes that. But yes,
to your point, you said this earlier, to know or
to believe that someone who you loved, who you brought
into your home, who was your boyfriend, to be told
that that person murdered your child, violated your child, and
(09:33):
to live with that, and then to find out that
that evidence wasn't true, that what prosecutors told this grieving
mother wasn't true. The anger you would feel on top
of the grief is beyond I.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Don't know if they have an option, and this has
happened in the past, but I feel like she should
have a right to sue. We've seen inmates get millions
of dollars for wrongful convictions. Man, this family should have
some kind of recourse. They should have some kind of
way to get back the past thirty years. If this
is the case, then they were victimized by the government.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Yes, and we obviously mentioned these two forensic scientists who
there's this video of them putting his dental mold onto
those little girl. The AP actually did a review almost
more than ten years ago about bite mark evidence. At
least two dozen wrongful convictions have happened because of this
(10:30):
way of I don't really understand it either, Babe, like
the way why they do this or how they use it.
But apparently the Innocence Project said bite mark evidence is
junk science. We've seen this in other wrongful conviction cases.
We've seen this in other inmates who have been free
just before their scheduled execution. But they're saying this is
junk science. They say there's no more prejudicial type of
(10:53):
junk science that exists than bite mark evidence. So their
question of the Innocence Project is actually because of this
case and others really trying to make an awareness campaign
about this, why it's allowed in courtroom still to this day,
given all the evidence we see of what it's led to,
which is wrongful commition.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Plenty of people who will point to this. I can
point to some episodes of Snapped and whatnot, and which absolutely,
the people have been convicted because they matched up bite marks.
So it's yes, I will listen to any expert, But
at the same time, I don't know what the balance
is and what this method is they use between actual
science and I know that bite marks have absolutely been
(11:33):
used in cases. So what were they doing that was different?
I just saw the word use method, This method they
used as if something they were doing was at least
at the time, legit, and maybe we found out we
shouldn't be doing. I couldn't understand what they meant by
this method they used. It didn't sound like a method.
It sounded like a setup to me.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Yeah, I was floored reading about this and into this,
And these are the types of cases that do bring
our attention to places where obviously we have some room
to grow in our judicial system, and certainly there are
a lot of folks who have paid the price for that.
When we come back, we're going to tell you you
mentioned this earlier in the episode about the state of Louisiana,
(12:15):
specifically their track record. It is one to pay attention
to and also will tell you what Duncan is going
to do now while he awaits that decision from the
Louisiana Supreme Court. Continuing our conversation about this latest case
(12:39):
out of Louisiana, where Jimmy Duncan, a man who spent
twenty seven years on death row, is now a freeman,
spent Thanksgiving with his family after he was convicted of
raping and murdering his then girlfriend's twenty three month old baby.
There was a lot to unpack in this case, but
a judge felt very or that this was a situation
(13:02):
in which this man needed to be released while he
awaits whether or not he will be fully exonerated by
the Louisiana Supreme Corp. With this, judge vacated his conviction
and set him free again after nearly three decades on
death row. Listen to this. Since nineteen seventy three, more
than two hundred people on death row have now been exonerated.
(13:23):
That is shocking, and in Louisiana, twelve people. It is
one of the highest wrongful conviction rates in the nation.
So that is something to pay attention to that we
are This isn't something we can reverse, This isn't something
we can say, sorry, we were wrong. When you're on
death row, there's no taking it back. If you have
(13:45):
an execution date, and we have certainly seen that happen posthumously,
which is incredibly It's tragic no matter what. But we
can't get it right once we've gotten it wrong. And
thank god, this man, Jimmy Duncan, was finely given some
sort of reprieve.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Do you have a case, Do you have a case?
I'm trying to think of one. It would have been
pretty high profile in which we have proven that we
killed a guy who was innocent.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Oh, there are cases I just haven't looked up. But yes,
we could do a whole podcast on that which we've.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Killed that have been proven after the fact to be innocent,
and that this country executed someone wrongly. Yeah, I mean,
I'm trying to think. I cannot remember when I figured
it to be very high profile. We talk about the
two hundred whatnot that have been exagner right after being
on death row. Some might point to that as the
(14:37):
system working. Some might point to that, see, we got
it right before we made a mistake. Sure we might
have gotten it wrong initially, but all of these checks
and balances are in place, with all the appeals to
make sure we get it right. And look, we haven't
been killing people who are innocent. I'm saying the other
side could make that.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Argument, of course, and certainly people have their strong opinions
about the death penalty and whether or not it's effective
and whether or not it is just punishment. The problem
is we have an imperfect system and we don't have
the absolute facts always in cases, and this is exactly
an example of that, and will point to this. In Louisiana.
(15:15):
Just two weeks ago, we did an episode on this.
We had Calvin Duncan. He had been behind bars for decades.
He was not on death row, but he was convicted
of murder. He was exonerated and just won an election
to serve as the Clerk of Courts in New Orleans
in their criminal courts. So you can just see someone
can go on to being behind bars for decades and
(15:38):
then actually serving our country in a beautiful way. So
they got it wrong then, and it looks like they
got it wrong on this one as well. So it's
just something to remember. Now. As far as Jimmy Duncan,
he plans to live with a relative in central Louisiana
and he is going. Can you imagine just waiting to
see if you have to go back. I mean, it's possible.
(15:58):
We don't know what the Supreme Court is going to
do in the state of Louisiana. He knows that it's
possible he could go back, and that's goind to just
be such an incredible situation mentally, after everything he's already
been through, you know.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
But it feels good where he is right now. And
if I could tell him anything, man, stay in the
moment today. You got today, You're not behind bars, and
that's all, and that's really all you can do. The
suit the money he is about to go after from
these folks. If that is true that he literally was
(16:33):
framed for murder that put him on death row, everybody
should be in jail for that.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Yeah, And we mentioned I totally agree and whatever. I
agree with that, And we mentioned about the bitemark forensic
science and it being junk science, and certainly the video
that shows them putting that dental mold onto the baby.
But also there was a pretty damning proof that they
coerced a jailhouse, you know, a prison inmate to testify
(17:01):
against him, who then later recanted what he said and
said he was coerced by prosecutors to turn evidence against
this man. So there was wrongdoing, it appears from start
to finish in this man's case, and we certainly hope
Jimmy Duncan had a phenomenal Thanksgiving dinner. And again, I
feel confident with this because when the baby's own mother,
(17:22):
who believed her ex boyfriend did this to her daughter,
is now completely convinced of his innocence. That means something
to me and I'm sure it had an impact on
the judge as well. So we appreciate you listening to
us as always on this Friday. Thank you so much.
I'm Amy Robock alongside TJ.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Holmes.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
We hope you all have a wonderful weekend.
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