Jimmie Duncan: Death row inmate convicted of murdering a child, released after 27 years

Jimmie Duncan, a Louisiana man who has spent nearly 30 years on death row, has been released on bail after his conviction was overturned earlier this year.

Duncan was convicted in 1998 of first-degree murder, accused by prosecutors of raping and drowning 23-month-old Haley Oliveaux, the daughter of his then-girlfriend, Allison Layton Statham.

In April 2025, Fourth Judicial District Court Judge Alvin Sharp dismissed that conviction following expert testimony revealing that the forensic evidence used to convict Duncan was “not scientifically defensible” and that Oliveaux’s death appeared consistent with an “accidental drowning.”

The faulty forensic bite mark analysis that played a key role in his case has led to many wrongful convictions elsewhere.

“The presumption is not great that he is guilty,” Judge Sharp wrote in his bail order Friday, citing new evidence from an evidentiary hearing last year and Duncan’s clean criminal record.

Duncan’s lawyers said the judge’s ruling “provided clear and convincing evidence showing that Mr Duncan is factually innocent,” adding that his release on bail “marks a significant step forward for Mr Duncan’s complete exoneration.”

Since 1973, over 200 people on death row have been exonerated in the US, including 12 in Louisiana, which has one of the highest wrongful conviction rates. The last death row exoneration in Louisiana came in 2016.

Duncan, whose vacated conviction is under review by the Louisiana Supreme Court, was freed on a $150,000 bond and plans to live with a relative.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, who advocates speeding executions of death row inmates, opposed Duncan’s bail, but the Supreme Court allowed a district judge to decide on the matter.

At the bail hearing in Ouachita Parish, Haley’s mother told the judge she came to believe Duncan is innocent and that her daughter, who had a history of seizures, likely died from an accidental drowning. “Her daughter wasn’t killed,” Ms Statham said in court records.

“Haley died because she was sick.” She added that the lives of her family and Duncan “have been destroyed by the lie” prosecutors and forensic experts told.

Prosecutors had relied on bite mark analysis and an autopsy by two experts linked to at least 10 wrongful convictions, whom Duncan’s legal team called discredited “charlatans.”

Dentist Michael West and pathologist Steven Hayne performed the examination. Video evidence showed West forcibly pressing a mold of Duncan’s teeth into Haley’s body, creating bite marks later used to convict Duncan, as stated in court filings. A state expert, unaware of this, testified at trial that the bite marks matched Duncan.

“The horror story that they put out and desecrated my baby’s memory makes me infuriated,” Ms Statham said.

“I was not informed of anything that would have exonerated Mr Duncan at all,” she added. “Had I been then, things would have turned out a lot different for Mr Duncan and all of our families.”