KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A judge has overturned a Black man’s conviction in a 2009 double homicide that was investigated by a discredited white Kansas City, Kansas, police detective.
The ruling Monday in the case of 34-year-old Cedric Warren came exactly one week after Roger Golubski died in an apparent suicide just before the start of his criminal trial over allegations that he sexually assaulted Black women.
Warren is now jailed in Wyandotte County while the prosecutor decides whether to retry him. A spokesman in the prosecutor’s office didn’t immediately respond to an email or phone message from The Associated Press seeking comment.
“I’m very thrilled,” Warren’s father, Cedric Toney, said in a phone interview Tuesday.
But Wyandotte County Judge Aaron Roberts based his ruling in Warren’s case on something different. He ruled from the bench that prosecutors failed to turn over information about the severe mental health issues of a key witness in the drug house shooting that killed Charles Ford and Larry Ledoux.
The witness had schizophrenia, and offered a shifting account of what happened before he became the only person to link Warren to the killing, the defense wrote in court filings.
Attorneys for Warren argued that the prosecution should have known about the witness’ mental health struggles because they caused issues years earlier when he was charged with passing bad checks. A mental health exam in that case found the man was incompetent to stand trial and highlighted several psychiatric hospitalizations.
Police officers also were aware of the witness’ mental health struggles because they took him to a psychiatric facility after questioning him in the double homicide, the defense said.
The defense wrote that the undisclosed evidence “undermined his credibility and ability to competently and reliably recount events.”
The family’s claims that Golubski harassed Warren’s mother and sister haven’t been aired in court, said Lindsay Runnels, an attorney for Warren. She said that is largely because a judge was focused on their allegations that evidence was withheld.
“As far as Cedric Warren is concerned, out is out,” she said, adding she is confident he will be released and possibly soon.
But while Golubski’s role in Warren’s case didn’t play a role in Roberts’ decision, the allegations have led the county prosecutor’s office to undertake a $1.7 million effort to reexamine other cases he worked on during his 35 years on the force.
Cheryl Pilate, another attorney representing Warren, is pursuing another claim that a person Golubski investigated is innocent. She stressed that the problems in the community extended beyond one detective and that others also played a role.
“This was a one witness case with no corroborating evidence,” she said. “And the witness was someone who was very vulnerable and had very significant mental health issues.”
