Missouri attorney general won’t retry Ryan Ferguson in sports editor’s death
Source: Kansas City Star
The Missouri attorney generals office announced Tuesday that it will not pursue a retrial in the case of Ryan Ferguson, whose conviction for the murder and robbery of a former Columbia newspaper editor was vacated last week by a state appellate court.
After studying the appellate courts opinion in Ferguson v. Dormire and carefully reviewing the remaining known evidence in the case, the Attorney Generals office will not retry or pursue further action against Ryan Ferguson at this time, the attorney generals office said in a release.
Fergusons attorney, Kathleen Zellner, who was on her way to Jefferson City on Tuesday afternoon, could not immediately be reached for comment. But an employee at Kathleen T. Zellner and Associates of Chicago said that Ferguson is expected to be released from the Jefferson City Correctional Center in the next few hours. He was serving a 40-year sentence.
Missouris Western District Court of Appeals ruled in an opinion last Tuesday that Fergusons conviction should be vacated on the grounds that the prosecution withheld evidence that could have proved helpful to Ferguson at trial. It also ordered Fergusons release from prison unless the state elected to go forward with a retrial.
Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/11/12/4616206/missouri-attorney-general-wont.html
The Ferguson case has attracted national media attention, most recently Dateline NBC, last Nov. 30.
Columbia Daily Tribune: Attorney General won't file new charges against Ryan Ferguson
AP: Missouri AG won't retry man for editor's death
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)Tom Ripley
(4,945 posts)finally
TorchTheWitch
(11,065 posts)I watched the 48 Hours (or Dateline?) episodes both about the original case before he was finally released and the follow up one where he finally was. What a horror story this poor guy went through. I still don't know what in the world to think of his so-called friend that was so convinced somehow that they did it or was so intent for some reason to say so even when it kept his own ass in jail.