Kevin Strickland

The media's influence has proven significant when it comes to wrongful conviction cases.

Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza is turning a century old, a milestone that finds people examining the iconic shopping center’s past and wondering about its future. Plus, Kevin Strickland talks about how the media covers wrongful convictions.

Missouri's Republican governor is walking back comments that he would not nominate a state health director “who does not share the same Christian values.” And he's defending the state's legal campaign against mask mandates and its controversial law that bans police in Missouri from enforcing federal gun restrictions.

For Kevin Strickland, who was released from prison late last year after serving 43 years for a crime he didn't commit, life on the outside hasn’t been easy. Now, in addition to adjusting to the mundane details of everyday life, he's working to educate others on defects in the criminal justice system.

At 43 years, Kevin Strickland served Missouri's longest wrongful conviction sentence. He and fellow exoneree Ricky Kidd share plans to raise awareness and prevent others from similar fates.

For now, he’s trying to adjust to things that didn’t exist when he was locked away more than four decades ago. Cellphones, for instance.

The two became acquainted while in Western Missouri Correctional Center. Now Kidd works to help Strickland with the challenges of adjusting to life on the outside.

In Missouri, very few inmates released after years of wrongful incarceration qualify for compensation.

Kevin Strickland was finally freed after 43 years wrongfully imprisoned, but Missouri’s compensation law only allows for payments to prisoners who prove their innocence through a specific DNA testing statute. What does freedom hold for Strickland and other exonerees like him?

Since the state of Missouri will not be compensating Kevin Strickland for the decades he spent wrongfully imprisoned, thousands of donors from across the country are making sure he has the support he needs.

After 43 years in prison, Kevin Strickland’s conviction was overturned but despite his wrongful incarceration, he won't receive any compensation from the state.

The attorney general's job is to seek justice, not to defend prior convictions, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker told KCUR. "They exploited these victims again," Peters Baker said of Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt's office.