KANSAS CITY, Kansas — A judge has overturned the conviction of a black man in a 2009 double murder investigated by a discredited white detective from Kansas City, Kansas.
The verdict on Monday in the case of 34-year-old Cedric Warren came exactly a week later Roger Golubski died in an apparent suicide just before the start of his criminal trial on charges that he sexually assaulted black women.
Warren is now in custody in Wyandotte County while prosecutors decide whether he will be retried. A spokesman for the prosecutor’s office did not immediately respond to an email or phone message from The Associated Press seeking comment.
“I’m very happy,” Warren’s father, Cedric Toney, said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
He said that before Golubski oversaw the investigation that led to his son’s arrest, the former detective stalked his daughter and his son’s mother. The charges are similar to those in the case of Lamonte McIntyre, who spent 23 years behind bars for a double murder before being released. McIntyre’s mother has said that Golubski pressured her for sexual favors.
But Wyandotte County Judge Aaron Roberts based his ruling in Warren’s case on something else. He ruled from the bench that prosecutors had failed to turn over information about the serious mental health problems of a key witness to the drug house shooting that killed Charles Ford and Larry Ledoux.
The witness suffered from schizophrenia and gave a varying account of what happened before becoming 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’s mental health issues because they caused problems years earlier when he was accused of passing bad checks. A mental health investigation in that case found the man unfit to stand trial and revealed several psychiatric hospitalizations.
Police officers were also aware of the witness’s psychological problems because they took him to a psychiatric facility after questioning him about the double murder, the defense said.
The defense wrote that the undisclosed evidence “undermined his credibility and ability to competently and reliably narrate the events.”
The family’s claims that Golubski molested Warren’s mother and sister have not come to light in court, said Lindsay Runnels, an attorney for Warren. She said this is largely because a judge focused on their allegations that evidence was withheld.
“As far as Cedric Warren is concerned, there is no end in sight,” she said, adding that she is confident he will be released, and possibly soon.
But while Golubski’s role in Warren’s case did not factor into Roberts’ decision, the allegations prompted the county prosecutor’s office to take action. $1.7 million attempt to re-examine other cases he worked on during his 35 years on the force.
Cheryl Pilate, another attorney representing Warren, makes another claim that a person Golubski investigated is innocent. She emphasized 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 serious mental health issues.”