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May 29, 2009

Missouri case gets "AMW's" attention ... but it's not what you think

Well, this is interesting: John Walsh, who for 21 years has been helping law enforcement to pull suspects out of thin air and get them into the criminal justice system where they belong, is now trying to spring someone who's in the grips of that same system. Or at least, get them a new trial.

Walsh will look at the case of Dale Helmig, whose conviction on the charge of murdering his mother has become a cause celebre for the Missouri Innocence Project. The group, which produced a documentary that it said lined up enough evidence to free Helmig, thought it had succeeded last fall when Helmig's conviction was overturned. But that ruling was reversed on appeal.

What's really interesting here is that Helmig is one of several cases that were prosecuted by former Missouri congressman Kenny Hulshof and which are now being called into question. In the video clip, Walsh refers to certain "prosecutorial missteps" committed in the Helmig case.

Not since the case of Bambi Bembenek has "AMW" involved itself so deeply in the case of a convicted killer as it will here. Which leads me to ask: Is John Walsh going to do more of this kind of thing? And if so, how do his allies in the law enforcement community feel about that?

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