ABA connects death row inmate to pro bono attorneys who help free him
Jimmie “Chris” Duncan is now the 117th death row inmate to avoid wrongful execution with the help of the ABA Death Penalty Representation Project.
Last week, the Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed a lower court decision that overturned Duncan’s first-degree murder conviction, citing new evidence that upended the prosecution’s entire theory of the crime.
“The post-conviction evidence did not merely challenge isolated portions of the state’s case, nor was this a renewed ‘battle of the experts,’” Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Cade Cole wrote in the June 29 opinion. “Rather, the post-conviction evidence undermined the core factual premises on which the state depended.”
Emily Olson-Gault, the director and chief counsel of the Death Penalty Representation Project, learned about Duncan’s case in 2016 through what is now the Mwalimu Center for Justice in New Orleans. Stacie Lieberman, then an attorney in the nonprofit law firm who represented indigent people sentenced to death, thought it was a case in which pro bono attorneys could make a big difference.
“Our role is to present the case, and its background, to pro bono law firms,” Olson-Gault says. “And in this case, because the facts on the trial record were so horrific, it was something that a lot of law firms wouldn’t even consider. But even at that point, we knew something had gone very wrong here.”
In 1993, Duncan had been babysitting his girlfriend’s 23-month-old daughter, Haley Oliveaux, when she drowned in the bathtub, according to a ProPublica story with additional coverage. Duncan told investigators he was washing dishes while the girl took a bath but went to check on her when he heard a noise from the bathroom. He found her unresponsive, attempted CPR and ran next door for help.
Prosecutors initially intended to charge Duncan with negligent homicide but upgraded it to first-degree murder after Oliveaux’s autopsy. During the autopsy, pathologist Steven Hayne and forensic odontologist Michael West claimed they found marks on the girl’s body that matched Duncan’s teeth. They said this and other evidence indicated she was sexually assaulted and forcibly drowned.
Duncan was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in 1998.
Olson-Gault shared these details during an informational meeting in Atlanta in 2016. Christian Bromley, who was then a first-year associate at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, attended the meeting and decided he wanted to take on Duncan’s case. He brought it back to the firm and began working with Scott Greene, a now-retired partner in his office.
“We spoke with Stacie about getting involved, and she explained that the facts seemed very puzzling,” Greene says. “Chris Duncan had no prior convictions. He had no propensity for doing something so horrifying.
“She thought with pro bono counsel and the resources Bryan Cave might be able to bring that we could dig into it and determine if, at a minimum, it was not a fair trial and if there was a lot more to the story than what the state had presented,” he adds.
For the next 10 years, Bromley, Greene and others from Bryan Cave contributed more than 10,000 pro bono hours to Duncan’s case. They petitioned the trial court after the 2021 passage of a Louisiana law that provides post-conviction relief to defendants who can show with new evidence that they are factually innocent of their crimes. In 2024, they were granted a six-day evidentiary hearing.
“What we tried to do was come in and say, ‘Here’s what actually happened that day,’” Bromley says. “It’s the same thing Chris Duncan told the police in 1993, minutes after leaving the hospital. His story has always been exactly the same. So we used all of that to build a case for factual innocence.”
Duncan’s legal team, which included the Innocence Project, argued that the bite mark analysis used for Duncan’s conviction is now considered junk science. They showed a video of West’s 1993 examination of Oliveaux, in which West is seen grinding a mold of Duncan’s teeth into the girl’s body.
Duncan’s lawyers argued that Hayne and West have been linked to unethical business practices and false or misleading representations since Duncan’s trial. According to ProPublica, at least nine other prisoners have been set free after being convicted in part through their work.
Among other evidence presented, Duncan’s legal team reiterated that the initial search of the crime scene found no blood, semen or evidence of a cleanup. They also pointed out that in the weeks before her death, Oliveaux had suffered from seizures and head trauma. They said this likely led to her accidental drowning.
In 2025, the trial court found Duncan was factually innocent, vacated his conviction and granted his release on bail the night before Thanksgiving.
Greene says finding out the Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed the lower court’s ruling last week was the highlight of his career.
“I’ve been an attorney for 44 years, and this was easily the greatest thing I’ve ever participated in,” he says.
Bromley, who is now a partner at Bryan Cave and spent almost all of his 11-year career on this case, also describes it as an incredible experience.
“There’s no version of this that I think we could have hoped for other than the highest court in Louisiana telling Chris that he, in fact, is factually innocent,” he says.
Bromley refers to Louisiana Supreme Court Chief Justice John Weimer’s concurring opinion as being particularly meaningful.
“This matter demonstrates we cannot be too careful in determining whether the death penalty should be implemented in cases such as this case because of the finality of the sentence and the impossibility of rectification,” Weimer wrote. “Such an irreversible and tragic consequence is inimical and deleterious to our system of justice if carried out based on evidence that is devoid of legitimacy.”
Cases like Duncan’s show how important it is for the ABA Death Penalty Representation Project to connect people who have been sentenced to death with attorneys who have the skills, training and resources to effectively represent them, Olson-Gault says.
“We consider every case we place with pro bono counsel to be a success, because that means that person gets representation,” she says. “But this is a challenging field, and there are a lot more losses than there are wins. To be able to celebrate an outcome like this, where the system got it right, and it was with the help of lawyers who have dedicated so much, is very uplifting for everyone.”
See also:
ABA project seeks more pro bono attorneys in wake of Supreme Court death penalty decision
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