Judge Calls Out SCANDAL: 27-Year Innocent Imprisonment

Hands gripping prison cell bars tightly.

For nearly three decades, a Louisiana man sat on death row for a “murder” a judge now says almost certainly never happened.

Story Snapshot

A Louisiana court has ruled Jimmie “Chris” Duncan is factually innocent after 27 years on death row for a crime experts now say never occurred.
Discredited “junk science” bite-mark claims and a high-volume pathologist helped secure his 1998 death sentence.
New forensic evidence shows the child likely accidentally drowned, while video appears to show a dentist creating fake bite marks.
Prosecutors are still asking higher courts to reinstate Duncan’s conviction and death sentence despite the innocence finding.

From Tragic Bath Time to Capital Murder Charge

In 1993, 23‑month‑old Haley Oliveaux became unresponsive while her mother’s boyfriend, Jimmie “Chris” Duncan, was bathing her in West Monroe, Louisiana. He tried CPR, ran for a neighbor, and called paramedics, but the toddler could not be revived. Local authorities initially treated the death as a heartbreaking accident in the bathtub, something every parent and grandparent fears but prays never happens in their own home.

After Haley’s body was sent across state lines to Jackson, Mississippi, the story changed dramatically. Pathologist Steven Hayne, who was performing over a thousand autopsies a year, reported that Haley had been sexually assaulted, bitten, and forcibly drowned. He brought in dentist and bite‑mark “expert” Michael West, whose opinions helped transform an accidental drowning into a capital murder case. A 1994 grand jury then indicted Duncan for the child’s alleged rape and murder.

Junk Science, Hidden Video, and a Death Sentence

By 1998, prosecutors in Ouachita Parish leaned heavily on Hayne’s and West’s courtroom testimony, plus a jailhouse informant who claimed Duncan conveniently confessed in a brief lockup encounter. The jury never saw any objective physical proof of guilt beyond these experts’ words. With that, a man who had called 911 for help was convicted of first‑degree murder and sentenced to die at Angola, Louisiana’s notorious state penitentiary.

Years later, new defense lawyers uncovered something the 1998 jury never saw: a videotape showing West pressing a mold of Duncan’s teeth into the child’s skin to “create” the very bite marks later described as proof of guilt. Modern forensic experts reviewed the original autopsy, medical records, and that video, concluding the bite‑mark evidence was scientifically indefensible and the autopsy cursory. Their testimony painted a damning picture of junk science driving a death sentence.

Judge Finds “Factual Innocence” While Prosecutors Push Back

In a 2024 evidentiary hearing, multiple specialists testified that Haley’s injuries were consistent with accidental drowning, not a sadistic assault. They also highlighted her seizure history, which could make a bath especially dangerous. Duncan’s original trial lawyer had failed to obtain the critical video, challenge the forensics, or call independent experts, leading the court to later find the defense was constitutionally ineffective in a case literally about life and death.

By spring 2025, District Judge Alvin Sharp concluded that clear and convincing evidence shows Duncan is factually innocent and that the state’s case was not scientifically defensible. After nearly 27 years on death row, Duncan was granted bail and walked out of Angola. Haley’s mother, who once believed the prosecution narrative, told the court she now thinks her daughter accidentally drowned and that both families had been “destroyed by the lie” she accepted for years.

Despite that, the Ouachita Parish district attorney’s office is urging appellate judges to reinstate Duncan’s conviction and death sentence. The case now sits before the Louisiana Supreme Court, which will decide whether to uphold the innocence finding or send Duncan back toward death row. For conservatives who believe in limited government and due process, the picture is alarming: a system that nearly executed a man for a crime that experts, a trial judge, and even the child’s mother now say never happened at all.