Despite the calls for his release and several prosecutors noting that they believe he is innocent, the Missouri Attorney General’s office said Monday it believes Kevin Strickland is guilty of killing three people in Kansas City and should remain in prison. According to a motion filed on Monday by Assistant Attorney General Andrew Clarke, Strickland was given a fair trial in 1979 has “worked to evade responsibility” for the Kansas City killings since then, The Kansas City Star reported.

The announcement and motion follow a statement in May from Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker that her office believed the evidence used to convict Strickland at the time of his 1979 trial has since been “eviscerated.” The announcement noted that other federal prosecutors, Jackson County’s presiding judge, and members of the team that convicted Strickland agreed he should be exonerated. Despite this, the Missouri Supreme Court declined to hear Strickland’s case resulting in his attorneys refiling a case in the county in which he is imprisoned.

Now in his 60s, Strickland was convicted when he was 18 for killing John Walker, 20, Sherrie Black, 22, and Larry Ingram, 21. Monday’s ruling most likely means that an evidentiary hearing will be held in front of Circuit Judge Ryan Horsman who will decide whether or not Strickland should be freed.

In response to the most recent petition for his exoneration, the attorney general’s office argued the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office has “studiously avoided, overlooked, misinterpreted, or misunderstood much of the evidence in Strickland’s case,” The Kansas City Star reported. It stood its ground on its belief that Strickland is guilty and alleged he offered the only eyewitness money prior to the killings to keep the murders quiet, despite the witness recanting her identification of Strickland and her family signing affidavits noting she wanted Strickland released from prison, prior to her death. Local prosecutors also noted that this allegation was never brought up in court.

“I am seeking info on how to help someone that was wrongfully accused,” Cynthia Douglas wrote in an email to the Midwest Innocence Project under the subject line: ‘Wrongfully charged.’ “I was the only eyewitness and things were not clear back then, but now I know more and would like to help this person if I can.” The email dates back to 2009, Douglas died in 2015.

Yet, the attorney general’s office disregarded this email and the family’s affidavits claiming she may have been coerced and would not have signed the documents in her lifetime. “Through his petition, Strickland attempts to make Douglas do in death what she would not do in life: exonerate him,” Clarke wrote.

But her family, whose opinion should take precedence, said otherwise. “She appeared very disturbed about having made this mistake,” Douglas’ mother, Senoria Douglas, told The Kansas Star in a previous interview. “Cynthia wanted Kevin Strickland out of prison, because she picked the wrong person, and she strongly felt that Kevin Strickland was innocent.” Douglass’s mother added that she tried to take back her testimony for a number of years.

Additionally, two men even pleaded guilty to the murders, Vincent Bell and Kilm Adkins, and confirmed Strickland was not with them during the killings—yet the attorney general’s office stays stubborn in their decision of convicting a clearly innocent man. “I’m telling you the truth today that Kevin Strickland wasn’t there at the house that day,” Bell said four months after Strickland was sent to prison. He pleaded guilty in 1979 to three counts of second-degree murder. “I’m telling the state and the society out there right now Kevin Strickland wasn’t there at that house.”

According to Bell, Strickland was mistaken for another teen, identified as Paul Holiway, who prosecutors believe is now a stronger suspect.

Despite the overwhelming evidence, the attorney general’s office claims that the sources are “unreliable” and had Strickland been with Bell he would have used his gun because he allegedly once said: “I love to shoot my gun, I’m a good shot and I love to kill people.” Strickland denied making these statements at trial and even if he did say them, it does not prove he was involved in the killings. The Jackson County Prosecutor’s office also noted that “unlike Strickland,” the other suspects had criminal histories involving armed robbery.

“Strickland has paid a steep price for associating with Bell, Adkins and T.A., for mouthing off to police, and for trying to be cool in helping his older neighbor Bell,” Baker and Nelson wrote in a letter outlining the prosecutor office’s review of the case. According to the Star, the initials T.A. are for Terry Abbott, who was considered a suspect in the case but not arrested.  Abbott also spoke to Strickland’s innocence and told a Midwest Innocence Project investigator that there “couldn’t be a more innocent person” than Strickland.

With the number of testimonies declaring Strickland’s innocence it’s unclear what evidence the attorney general’s office is making its guilty claim off of. But marking people of color as guilty despite evidence proving they are innocent is not a new position the attorney general’s office has taken. According to Injustice Watch, the move to oppose Strickland’s petition follows a pattern of the office resisting every wrongful conviction case to come before it since 2000. “That includes 27 cases in which the office fought to uphold convictions for prisoners who were eventually exonerated,” Injustice Watch reported last year. “In roughly half of those cases, the office continued arguing that the original guilty verdict should stand even after a judge vacated the conviction.”

Now in a wheelchair, Strickland remains in prison until a decision is made, Jackson County prosecutors shared that if not released by Aug. 28 they plan to file a motion asking a Jackson County judge to exonerate him. According to the Star, by then a bill is expected to be signed into law by Missouri Gov. Mike Parson that would allow local prosecutors to free prisoners who they deemed innocent. Even without the law, Parson has the ability to pardon Strickland, however, he has not done so because he is still not convinced Strickland is innocent.

According to a March 2019 study from the Prison Policy Initiative, “the American criminal justice system holds almost 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 109 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails, and 80 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories.” Not all of those who are incarcerated receive the fair trials they deserve, and many are not only serving sentences out of proportion to their crime but for crimes they did not commit.

Our criminal justice system must be reformed to do better.