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KANSAS CITY, Missouri (AP) -- A St. Louis man released from prison after a judge overturned his 1984 murder conviction says he hopes his case will help other innocent people who are behind bars.
Forty-six-year-old Darryl Burton walked out of prison Friday, the same day prosecutors in St. Louis decided against trying him a second time.
During a news conference Tuesday, Burton said he believes there are thousands of other innocent people in prison. He said cases like his -- in which there is no DNA evidence -- are especially difficult to prove and are often ignored.
Burton was convicted in a 1984 gas station killing in St. Louis.
Attorney Cheryl Pilate, of suburban Kansas City, said she picked up Burton at the prison on Monday, along with a Columbia pastor who had befriended him.
"He had his first meal in Columbia with us," Pilate said. The group then went to St. Louis so that Burton could visit with family members, including "nieces and nephews he had never seen before. That was wonderful." He also has family in Kansas City and will live there, she said.
No physical evidence or suggested motive had ever tied Burton to the June 1984 shooting death of Donald Ball at an Amoco station in St. Louis. Instead, he was convicted solely on the testimony of two men who claimed to have witnessed the shooting.
But one of those witnesses, Claudex Simmons, lied during Burton's 1985 trial in St. Louis Circuit Court when he testified that his own criminal history consisted of just two convictions.
Simmons had actually been convicted of at least seven felonies and five misdemeanors -- information that should have been disclosed to the jury, Cole County Circuit Judge Richard G. Callahan wrote in an August 18 ruling accompanying a writ of habeas corpus.
"The concealment of Mr. Simmons' extensive criminal history caused enormous prejudice to Mr. Burton, as Simmons was the main witness against him," Callahan wrote. "A complete disclosure of Mr. Simmons' history would have shown that he was not just an occasional thief, but was an experienced criminal."
Callahan also cited testimony from three women who were at the gas station and said Ball's killer was a light- or medium-complexioned black man. They said they considered Burton to be dark-skinned.
Callahan's ruling also noted that Simmons and the other prosecution witness repeatedly changed key details of their accounts of seeing Burton open fire on Ball and flee the scene.
Burton had maintained his innocence from the start and filed numerous appeals in state and federal courts, only to lose at every turn. But the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, while refusing on other grounds to grant Burton a new trial, said in 2002 it found the case troubling.
Noting evidence that had emerged since the trial, the 8th Circuit said there was reason to suspect "that the wrong man may have been convicted of capital murder and armed criminal action."
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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