The Missouri Court of Appeals issued a HUGE decision yesterday about the case of Richard Buchli, a local attorney convicted of murdering his law partner. Basically, the appeals court ruled, the prosecution didn't play fair with the evidence and can't be trusted to give Buchli a fair trial.
So all of the state's evidence should be tossed, which means Buchli, whose conviction was previously overturned, can't be retried. (Assuming the court's decision stands.) Mark Morris has the full story here.
The right to have all of that evidence — called “discovery” in legal parlance — effectively trumps the state’s right to prosecute Buchli in the death of Richard Armitage at their downtown law office, the court ruled.
“There is unquestionably a societal interest in prosecuting cases of murder, but this does not give the state free reign to prosecute this defendant for an indefinite period of time, no matter how many decades it takes the state to comply with its legal obligations,” Judge Gary D. Witt wrote in the 24-page majority opinion.
