ADA, Okla. (KFOR) – The Oklahoma Lawyer Basic’s Workplace has filed a response in an ongoing lawsuit to maintain a convicted assassin behind bars, even after a district decide vacated his life sentence and referred to as for his speedy launch.
Tommy Ward has been in jail 35 years for a homicide he swears he didn’t commit.
Ward’s case was the main target of the Netflix documentary “The Harmless Man,” which was launched in 2018.
The case was significantly stunning as a result of Ward and his alleged confederate, Karl Fontenot, confessed to the 1984 homicide of Denise Haraway in Ada.
Nevertheless, some psychological consultants now consider each suspects might have been coerced by detectives as a result of their confessions contained little to no correct details about the crime.
The Ada Police Division has come underneath fireplace lately for suspicious investigation ways.
In reality, two different confessed murderers, who have been convicted across the similar time as Ward and Fontenot, have already been exonerated by DNA proof.
Their confessions have been discovered to be coerced by overzealous investigators.
In December of 2023, District Choose Paula Inge vacated the conviction of Tommy Ward, ruling he didn’t obtain a good trial as a result of the state withheld proof within the case and since a good path can be unattainable so a few years after the crime.
“There was a witness we had no concept existed till 2019,” stated Ward’s lawyer, Greg Swygert. “That witness was on the comfort retailer, gasoline station, inside an hour of Ms. Haraway’s disappearance. That individual we can not discover. We now have no path on that individual; and that individual was not identified till 2019.”
Ward’s household believed he can be let loose of jail after Choose Inge’s ruling.
Nevertheless, the Oklahoma Lawyer Basic’s workplace is interesting the choice and sought a keep within the case, which was upheld by the Oklahoma Court docket of Legal Appeals.
That keep requires Ward to stay in jail whereas his attraction in pending.
Ward’s confederate, Karl Fontenot, has already been launched from jail, following a ruling by a Federal Appeals Court docket in Muskogee, Oklahoma overturning his life sentence.
Fontenot’s attraction can also be ongoing.
The Oklahoma Court docket of Legal Appeals will make a remaining choice on whether or not Tommy Ward shall be launched from jail whereas combating this attraction.
On Friday, the lawyer normal filed a short asking the Oklahoma Court docket of Legal Appeals to reverse the district courtroom’s most up-to-date ruling to toss out Ward’s conviction, or permit the state to re-try Tommy Ward.
“We’re glad for a re-trial,” Swygert stated. “We simply desire a trial the place it is truthful, truthful for Tommy and Karl. It appears the Lawyer Basic ought to conform to that since they understand and so they do not deny that every one of this proof was withheld.”
The lawyer normal referred to as Choose Inge’s choice to vacate the judgment and sentence, dismiss all prices and name for speedy discharge an “abuse of discretion with no foundation in Oklahoma post-conviction regulation.”
The AG additionally argued within the submitting an excessive amount of time has elapsed for Ward to be granted the sort of post-conviction reduction.
“It does not appear truthful after they say the trial wasn’t truthful as a result of they withheld proof, after which they are saying, ‘Nicely, you waited too lengthy.'” Swygert stated. “Should not now we have the trial to start with the place it is truthful? Let’s have that as a beginning place.”
Ward’s protection crew can have an extra 30 days to answer the latest submitting.
At that time, the courtroom will both make a ruling on Ward’s incarceration or ask for oral arguments.
The lawyer normal’s workplace just isn’t providing any extra feedback on the case.
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