The Missouri Court of Appeals is considering whether Christopher Dunn will remain a free man two years after a judge threw out his murder conviction.
The judges heard oral arguments Thursday in an effort by the state attorney general's office to reverse a 2024 ruling by Judge Jason Sengheiser of the 22nd Circuit in St. Louis that threw out Dunn's conviction.
Dunn was 19 when he was convicted of the May 18, 1990, murder of Ricco Rogers based solely on the testimony of two adolescent boys who later recanted. In 2020, a judge in Texas County, where Dunn was in prison, ruled "this court does not believe that any jury would now convict Christopher Dunn under these facts."
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore filed a motion to vacate the conviction, which Sengheiser granted. The state Supreme Court granted the attorney general the right to appeal that decision in April 2025, leading to Thursday's hearing.
The 2021 state statute that created the motion to vacate process says a judge must grant such a motion if "the court finds that there is clear and convincing evidence of actual innocence or constitutional error at the original trial or plea that undermines the confidence in the judgment."
Sengheiser wrote in 2024 that one of the two eyewitnesses, DeMorris Stepp, then 14, "should not be trusted for anything regarding this case," and that the second boy, Michael Davis, who was 12, had been consistent in his recantations even if he had lied about other aspects. For that reason, the judge ruled, Dunn's attorneys had met the standard set out in the law.
"The Court's confidence in the outcome of the first trial is sufficiently undermined by the recantation of the key witnesses against him in the first trial to require setting aside his conviction," he wrote.
But recantations alone are not enough to show actual innocence, said Assistant Attorney General Andrew Clark.
"That's sort of a hard-earned understanding that courts have had throughout millennia, that recantations are not reliable, and that recantations given after people are outside of jeopardy or given years later or given in relation to threats, that they're not reliable," he said.
Had Sengheiser explicitly said he found Stepp and Davis' recantations credible, Clark said, it might be harder to make the argument that there was not enough evidence to throw out Dunn's case. But he did not.
Attorney Booker Shaw, who represented Gore, said the fact that Sengheiser doubted the credibility of the only witnesses meant the office had met its burden of proving actual innocence.
"You can't tell who was lying when, but you know they're all liars. I mean, that's the point, right?" he said. "Ultimately, Judge Sengheiser decided that no juror acting reasonably would have voted to find Dunn guilty of these crimes beyond a reasonable doubt with the remaining evidence."
The appeals court will rule at a later date. It is not clear what will happen if the judges decide Sengheiser incorrectly freed Dunn, who now lives in California.
Copyright 2026 St. Louis Public Radio
