After spending 15 years in prison, Cedric Warren walked out of the Wyandotte County jail in Kansas on Wednesday a free man and into the arms of his family.
At the state prison in El Dorado, nearly 170 miles away, Dominic Moore, 40, was released to his attorneys and on his way back to Kansas City, Kansas.
Both men saw their convictions in a double murder tossed out this week after Wyandotte County District Court Judge Aaron Roberts found evidence of prosecutorial misconduct in their criminal cases.
Neither received a fair trial because of a failure by the District Attorney’s Office to disclose discrediting information about a witness essential to the state’s case.
Friends, family members and lawyers for the men celebrated the outcome on Wednesday as Moore and Warren were released from state custody one after the other. Both have maintained their innocence.
“I’m just glad that this is all over with now,” said Cedric Toney, Warren’s father, standing beside attorney Cheryl Pilate, who represented Warren alongside the nonprofit Midwest Innocence Project.
Warren, 34, declined to speak with reporters awaiting his release as he left jail carrying a large plastic bag filled with his things. Toney said his son was overwhelmed and wanted to make his first stop at the cemetery to visit his mother and sister’s graves. Both died while Warren was in prison.
“We’ve been waiting 15 years,” Toney said. “Christmas is going to be beautiful. Sad that his mom and his sister’s not going to be here to enjoy it with us.”
Reached briefly by phone, Moore thanked his attorneys for working “to help me out, to get me out of here, to prove my innocence.”
Moore and Warren have been incarcerated since 2009. The two were convicted of a double murder during a robbery at a Kansas City, Kansas, drug house.
During a press conference Wednesday, Wyandotte County District Attorney Mark Dupree said his office was preparing a motion to dismiss the charges against Moore and Warren. The decision came after the office tried unsuccessfully to preserve the convictions in court.
Judge Roberts made his findings solely on what is known as a Brady violation, a serious misstep by prosecutors that can lead to convictions being undone. Prosecutors are required under the law to disclose information about a criminal case that may benefit the defendant.
In the cases of Warren and Moore, that violation centered on witness Brandon Ford, who testified to being present in the home at the time the killings unfolded. Ford gave a series of inconsistent statements to police about what he saw that night.
Prosecutors failed to disclose that Ford had a history of paranoid schizophrenia, a known fact as a Kansas City, Kansas, detective dropped him off for psychiatric care after questioning. Also, five years earlier, a Wyandotte County criminal case against Ford was thrown out because of his inability to comprehend the charges against him.
“Our system can be harsh and it is tough, but it is made to be fair,” Dupree, first elected in 2016, said in prepared remarks Wednesday. “Warren and Moore did not, under the previous administration, receive a fair trial.”
