By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH and JIM SALTER

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A man who was on the verge of walking out of prison this week after a judge found evidence of “actual innocence” and overturned his murder conviction now faces a fresh legal hurdle.

The person blocking Christopher Dunn’s freedom is Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who is fresh off an unsuccessful battle to keep another woman whose murder conviction was reversed imprisoned.

Political scientists say Bailey’s efforts are a way to appear tough on crime and shore up votes in advance of a tough primary race. Judges and defense attorneys are voicing frustration.

“His actions are causing undue harm to this innocent individual and is a stain on our legal system,” Michael Heiskell, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said when asked about Bailey’s opposition to Dunn’s release.

Here are some things to know:

Who is Christopher Dunn?

Dunn, who is Black, was 18 in 1990 when 15-year-old Ricco Rogers was killed. Among the key evidence used to convict him of first-degree murder was testimony from two boys who were at the scene of the shooting. Both later recanted their testimony, saying they had been coerced by police and prosecutors.

Judge Jason Sengheiser on Monday overturned the murder conviction of the now 52-year-old and ordered his immediate release. Bailey’s office appealed, and prison officials declined to release Dunn.

Sengheiser then held an emergency hearing Wednesday and threatened to hold the warden in contempt if he didn’t free Dunn within hours. Dunn was signing papers, preparing to walk out the door, when the Missouri Supreme Court agreed to consider Bailey’s objections and halted his release, a corrections department spokesperson said.

“That is not justice,” the Midwest Innocence Project, which is representing Dunn, said in a statement.

Bailey’s spokesperson has declined repeated email and text requests for comments. On Wednesday, she provided a link to the order halting Dunn’s release.

Dunn’s case marks the second “actual innocence” ruling in the state in recent weeks. Sandra Hemme, now 64, spent 43 years in prison for the fatal 1980 stabbing of a library worker before a judge overturned her conviction.

Appeals by Bailey — all the way up to the Missouri Supreme Court — kept Hemme imprisoned at the Chillicothe Correctional Center for more than a month after that initial ruling. During a court hearing last Friday, Judge Ryan Horsman scolded an attorney in Bailey’s office for telling the warden not to release Hemme on her own recognizance pending an appellate court review.

“To call someone and tell them to disregard a court order is wrong,” Horsman said. He said that if Hemme wasn’t released within hours, Bailey himself would have to appear in court with contempt of court on the table.

Hemme, whose attorneys with the Innocence Project described her as the longest held wrongly incarcerated woman known in the U.S., was released later that day.

“The court has to be obeyed,” said Michael Wolff, a former Missouri Supreme Court judge and chief justice.

Bailey’s opposition to innocence claims

A Missouri law adopted in 2021 lets prosecutors request hearings when they see evidence of a wrongful conviction.

The law was passed after another judge, William Hickle, found in 2020 that a jury would likely find Dunn not guilty based on new evidence. But Hickle declined to order Dunn’s release, citing a 2016 Missouri Supreme Court ruling that only people on death row could make a “freestanding” claim of actual innocence.

In 2023, Bailey opposed the release of Lamar Johnson, who spent 28 years in prison for murder. Another St. Louis judge overturned Johnson’s conviction, and he was freed.

Stakes are even higher for a hearing next month. St. Louis County’s prosecutor believes DNA evidence shows that Marcellus Williams didn’t commit the crime that landed him on death row. DNA of someone else — but not Williams — was found on the knife used in the 1998 killing, experts said.

A hearing on Williams’ innocence claim begins Aug. 21. His execution is scheduled for Sept. 24.

Bailey’s office is opposing the challenge to Williams’ conviction, too.

Bailey’s appointment as attorney general

When Eric Schmitt was elected to the U.S. Senate in November 2022, Republican Gov. Mike Parson appointed Bailey, who at the time was serving as the governor’s lawyer, as Schmitt’s replacement.

Bailey’s first election test comes in next month’s primary. Ken Warren, a professor emeritus of political science at Saint Louis University, said fighting the release of people in custody advances Bailey’s agenda.

“This will only help him with his base,” he said.

Bailey’s opponent, Will Scharf, a former federal prosecutor who recently served as an attorney for former President Donald Trump, has been attacking Bailey as liberal, said Steven Puro, professor emeritus of political science of St. Louis University.

Puro said Bailey is balancing the need to look tough while avoiding being perceived as uncaring and not obeying the law.

“Most other prosecutors have thought the risk was not worth the reward,” Puro said.

Bailey’s use of the courts

Since taking office, Bailey has sued Planned Parenthood and President Joe Biden, tried to force clinics that provide gender-affirming care to hand over their records, and pushed a liberal prosecutor to resign.

When debate over transgender minors’ access to gender-affirming health care reached a fever pitch in Missouri in 2023, Bailey tried to restrict access to both minors and adults by regulation — a move typically reserved for the state’s health department.

He later pulled the rule amid legal battles and action from the Legislature. Most recently, Bailey sued the state of New York over its prosecution of Trump, arguing that Trump’s conviction constitutes election interference.

Richard Serafini, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice, called the lawsuit against New York “one of the silliest things that I think I’ve ever heard of in the practice of law.”

And Lindsay Runnels, an attorney who serves on the board of the Midwest Innocence Project, questioned the fight to free people once judges have ruled.

“The system doesn’t work if our highest law enforcement officer in the state flouts the court system and believes that they are not accountable to them for their orders and following orders,” she said. “It’s insane.”

___

Summer Ballentine contributed to this report from Columbia, Missouri. Hollingsworth reported form Mission, Kansas.

The Forest Lake City Council recently parted ways with the search firm originally hired to find a new city administrator and is starting anew.

The contract between the city and David Drown and Associates, the firm that had been hired to find its new administrator, was dropped after city officials asked for more background check information and to arrange a second interview with top finalist Joe Gaa, former city administrator in Marshalltown, Iowa. The firm, which had presented a list of six finalists to the council in June, was paid $10,000 for its services. The original contract was for $24,000.

Council members decided to open a secondary search rather than go to one of the other finalists, said Mayor Mara Bain. On Tuesday, the Forest Lake City Council selected Stillwater-based Specialized Recruiting Group to lead the search; the contract is for $29,500.

Bain said the council wants to “take a more targeted approach” this time around. Specialized Recruiting Group will be asked to “build a much more specific profile for the city administrator and use targeted recruitment efforts to find ideal candidates instead of relying on job boards to market the position,” she said.

Specialized will be asked to find two to five candidates “who meet or exceed the profile” to bring forward for the council’s consideration, she said.

The interim city administrator position is currently being held by Kristina Handt, former Lake Elmo city administrator. Handt was hired in mid-January after the Forest Lake City Council voted unanimously to terminate former city administrator Patrick Casey’s employment contract and hire her as interim administrator and interim clerk. The vote came after a closed session to discuss Casey’s annual performance evaluation.

The council on July 8 approved an updated interim agreement with Handt to continue to provide services through at least Sept. 30, the final date a preliminary budget must be submitted by the city, unless the permanent position is filled before then, Bain said.

“We hope to have the new person on board as soon as possible,” Bain said. “We need this process to move as fast as it can as this is a strategic position that is mission critical to the city of Forest Lake.”

Mayor not running for re-election

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Bain, who is wrapping up her third term as mayor, said she has decided not to run for re-election.

“It is time to focus on other things personally,” said Bain, who served on the council for two years prior to being elected mayor. “I’m at a point in my career where I want to continue to focus on my day job.”

A change in leadership can bring a “fresh perspective,” she said. “There are always things that new people can accomplish, people who have fresh eyes and renewed energy. So much of what we do in city government is long term in nature, so there is always a benefit in having rotation in the leadership chair … and making sure that we are on the right path.”

Ben Warian dripped in a 19-foot birdie putt on the difficult ninth hole at TPC Twin Cities – his final hole of the day – and a gallery of 60-plus fans roared as Warian carded a 2-under round of 69.

Thursday’s first round of the 3M Open was a home game in every sense for the recent Gophers grad. Much of the gallery was garnished in maroon and gold, including Warian’s college teammates. Many others from the local community were in attendance to cheer on the Stillwater native and Hill-Murray alum.

“There was a lot of energy out there, for sure. Yeah, thankful for all the family and friends who came out to support,” Warian said. “Gosh, yeah, you name ’em, I guess they’re out here from my family and my friends. Yeah, it’s been very humbling and very cool to see everybody come out to support, that’s for sure.”

His father – John Warian – made his way over to seemingly every fan to thank them for taking the time to come out and support his son.

“I never thought there’d be this many people out here supporting him,” John said. “It’s amazing.”

Ben Warian certainly gave onlookers reasons to cheer Thursday. He went out in 5-under 31, capped by birdies on holes No. 17 and 18 to move the amateur into a tie for second.

His friends put their arms around one another to witness the birdie putt on No. 18, and erupted when the ball hit the bottom of the cup. Warian’s crowds continued to grow with each birdie

“It was pretty surreal,” said Warian’s friend, Will Frazier. “We’ve both seen it all the time. Like every time we play with him it’s like, ‘You’re such a good player. You belong here.’ But then to actually see him do it the first nine holes, I’m sure I was more nervous than he was on the first tee box, but man, was it fun.”

Excitement was palpable. And at the same time, even the ardent supporters seemed slightly stunned.

“It was just like ‘The golf gods are really being good to us right now,’” John said. “Our goal as a family is hoping that he makes the cut. And as you noticed, on the front nine it was a little bit different than that. And then we had two holes of reality.”

On No. 2, Warian hit his drive into the rough, but tried to be aggressive on his approach. He missed his mark and the shot went into the water, leading to a double bogey.

“That’s obviously just course management right there, just give myself a chance for par to get up and down, that would have been obviously a lot smarter,” Warian said.

“Honestly, it was kind of funny, because when you get into these moments, things start speeding up,” Frazier said. “I think right after he hit it he goes, ‘Ah, I should’ve laid up.’ And it’s easy to say, but it’s hard to be patient, man. You’re five-under in your first event, you’re sitting there in like second place with PGA Tour players, the last thing you want to do is lay up from like 150, right?”

Warian then double bogeyed No. 3 after another wayward drive and a tough three-putt. But he stabilized from there, recording five straight pars before ending his day with a birdie.

“Just makes me more proud, because he’s getting rewarded for everything he’s put into it,” John said. “A lot of players, when they have adversity like that twice in a row, they’ll throw in the towel. Ben didn’t. He clawed back, like he always has, and he came back and just played his heart out and did very well. Strong finish.”

Ben noted that final birdie “felt pretty good.”

“Birdies are always nice, and yeah, when they’re accompanied by a couple hundred people yelling as well it makes it that much more fun,” he noted.

That loud support wasn’t surprising given the stage – it’s not every day a local gets this type of opportunity. But the shear volume of fans spoke to Warian’s local popularity. That, friends say, is a product of who Ben Warian is.

“Growing up with him, he just wants to give, give, give,” said Warian’s friend, Brock Winter, “and see what he can help you do.”

For instance, Winter was ill on Wednesday night, and on the eve of his first PGA Tour start, Warian made a point to bring his friend some soup.

“That’s Ben Warian right there,” Frazier said.

Which is the same thing local golf fans will be saying as they watch throughout the weekend in Blaine should Warian continue the quality of play he displayed Thursday.

“I think certainly on those first nine holes, yeah, I proved a lot to myself,” Warian said. “I think it shows that, I mean, my good is certainly good enough, it’s just continuing to kind of tighten up the misses a little bit and yeah, clean a few things up.”

“Surprising that he played well? No, not at all,” Winter said. “I think his expectation is that he can win out here.”

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Starting on Thursday of last week with ripple effects for days afterward, a routine software update caused a record-breaking freeze across much of the world.

CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity vendor deployed by Microsoft systems, installed an update that analysts say probably skipped quality testing. The result disabled an estimated 8.5 million computers in perhaps the largest cyber event in history.

Affected were Microsoft-powered systems critical to the online operations of banks, hospitals, police forces, major airlines, TV stations and government agencies. Flights and surgeries were canceled, courts and government offices shut down, and new hacking vulnerabilities introduced, including for federal agencies.

The shutdown brought Americans’ collective cyber vulnerability into sharp focus: Our reliance on trillion-dollar tech overlords may imperil national security.

The tech providers that support infrastructure relied upon by the public and private sectors bear a responsibility to protect our safety and security. In 2023, federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly proposed holding tech companies liable for selling vulnerable products. With such liability measures in place, CrowdStrike’s global outage might have been avoided.

The rapid consolidation of power in tech companies poses challenges to the government and society. Companies reaching unprecedented sizes and valuations in the trillions control digital infrastructure that people depend on at least as much as the mail and trash pickup. Tech companies now run or help run communications, commerce and other services more nimbly than do federal agencies. But they also do it with less regulation and public oversight — as well as a profit motive.

The tech sector’s market dominance accounts for more than 10% of the U.S. economy. In 2024, Microsoft reported revenues of $211.91 billion. Other tech behemoths posted even larger figures: Amazon $574.78 billion, Apple $383.28 billion and Alphabet (Google) $307.39 billion. (Meta Platforms, formerly Facebook, posted $134.90 billion.)

A chunk of these profits goes toward lobbying and paying penalties for safety and antitrust violations, rather than investing in cybersecurity and other improvements that would reduce consumer harms. In 2023, tech giants spent at least $10 million each on lobbying while also receiving more than $3 billion in fines and settlements for breaking European digital antitrust laws and facing lawsuits by the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission.

Meanwhile, in 2022, the financial impact of poor software quality in the U.S. amounted to at least $2.41 trillion, according to the Consortium for Information & Software Quality.

Software-caused outages can be avoided in a few ways. Diversifying tech contractors and options strengthens resilience and mitigates risks. By contrast, if everyone relies on just a couple of providers, any single breakdown carries huge consequences. CrowdStrike, one of the nation’s largest cybersecurity firms, exemplifies this issue; it counts more than half of the Fortune 500 companies as customers.

Equally important is cybersecurity redundancy — multiple layers of security measures and backup systems that ensure continuous protection and functionality, even if one layer fails or is compromised. Although creating these redundancies may cost companies more in the beginning, they are investments in maintaining trust between businesses and their customers, as Javad Abed, a cybersecurity expert and assistant professor in business at Johns Hopkins University, told USA Today.

Around two-thirds of software vulnerabilities reported in commonly used programming languages stem from memory-related security flaws, such as the misallocation or freeing up of memory spaces that can enable unauthorized access or the execution of malicious code.

Earlier this year, the White House — notably, given how often the government lags on tech issues — urged the widespread adoption of “memory safe” programming languages such as Rust, Go, Python and Java, which protect against certain kinds of bugs related to how memory is used. Yet Microsoft and other big tech companies continue to rely on C/C++ alongside other languages because those are fast and used in developing firmware, programs embedded in hardware memory to help devices operate. It is worth sacrificing some convenience to avoid devastating security lapses.

Finally, in line with Easterly’s recommendation to increase liability for tech companies, U.S. regulations need an update. Our antitrust laws should move away from focusing solely on pricing and avoiding economic harm to encompass data privacy protection and security.

Federal standards to ensure that software is secure by design would shift responsibility to vendors to provide safe products from the outset. We can also look to the European Union, where regulators are prioritizing cyber resilience through the Digital Operational Resilience Act, effective in 2025, meant to establish strict requirements to make sure the financial sector can handle information and technology threats.

Only by holding technology providers to the highest standards can we continue to enjoy the advances of an interconnected world without fear of avoidable — and possibly life-threatening — disruption.

Heidi Boghosian is an attorney and author of the forthcoming book “Cyber Citizens: Saving Democracy Through Digital Literacy.” She wrote this column for the Los Angeles Times.

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