Louisiana Supreme Court Affirms Lower Court’s Vacatur and Factual Innocence Finding for Former Death-Sentenced Man, Jimmie Duncan

On June 29, 2026, the Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed a low­er court’s deci­sion find­ing Jimmie Duncan fac­tu­al­ly inno­cent and vacat­ing his first-degree mur­der con­vic­tion and death sen­tence. Mr. Duncan was sen­tenced to death for the 1993 death of his girlfriend’s tod­dler, Haley Oliveaux, large­ly based on faulty bite mark evi­dence. In April 2025, Louisiana District Court Judge Alvin Sharp held that expert tes­ti­mo­ny pre­sent­ed dur­ing an evi­den­tiary hear­ing demon­strat­ed the bite mark analy­sis used against Mr. Duncan is ​“no longer valid” and ​“not sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly defen­si­ble.” The jus­tices upheld Judge Sharp’s deci­sion ​“vacat­ing [Mr.] Duncan’s con­vic­tion and sen­tence” because of the ​“new, reli­able, and non­cu­mu­la­tive evi­dence” that coun­sel for Mr. Duncan had presented.

Writing on behalf of the court, Justice Cade R. Cole not­ed the evi­dence pre­sent­ed dur­ing a 2024 evi­den­tiary hear­ing ​“under­mined the core fac­tu­al premis­es on which the state depend­ed” in achiev­ing Mr. Duncan’s con­vic­tion and sen­tenc­ing. Justice Cole wrote, “[t]he post-con­vic­tion evi­dence did not sim­ply offer a com­pet­ing inter­pre­ta­tion of the tri­al evi­dence, but instead sub­stan­tial­ly under­mined the core foren­sic and med­ical evi­dence on which the state’s the­o­ry of first-degree mur­der depend­ed.” Because of this, Mr. Duncan ​“has proven that it is ​’much more prob­a­ble than not’ that no ratio­nal juror would have found him guilty of the first-degree mur­der of Haley beyond a reasonable doubt.” 

While the state supreme court’s deci­sion affirms the low­er court’s deci­sion, Robert ​‘Steve’ Tew, District Attorney for Ouachita and Morehouse Parishes, has pre­vi­ous­ly indi­cat­ed that he would retry Mr. Duncan even if the high court affirmed the vacatur. During oral argu­ments, DA Tew claimed that because Mr. Duncan was the only per­son with Haley lead­ing up to her death, his guilt was not in ques­tion. ​“We don’t need bite mark evi­dence to put Mr. Duncan in the apart­ment alone with this child,” DA Tew stat­ed. Chris Fabricant, Director of Strategic Litigation with the Innocence Project, and coun­sel for Mr. Duncan, said that ​“if there is any sense of fair­ness and jus­tice left, this should be the end of this case.”

Mr. Duncan’s con­vic­tion relied on foren­sic evi­dence and tes­ti­mo­ny pro­vid­ed by den­tist Dr. Michael West and pathol­o­gist Dr. Steven Hayne, whose work as state experts has come under scruti­ny because of their involve­ment in wrong­ful con­vic­tions. Their tes­ti­mo­ny has been dis­cred­it­ed in numer­ous cas­es, with nine pris­on­ers — three of them death-sen­tenced — freed from prison after it was proven their con­vic­tions were based at least in part on inac­cu­rate evi­dence. New expert tes­ti­mo­ny, pre­sent­ed dur­ing an evi­den­tiary hear­ing and cit­ed by Judge Alvin Sharp in his November 2025 bail order, sug­gests that Haley’s death result­ed not from homi­cide but from acci­den­tal drown­ing. Judge Sharp also cit­ed evi­dence of pre­vi­ous head injuries Haley had suf­fered that could have explained her death.

Mr. Duncan has long main­tained his inno­cence, explain­ing that he left Haley in the bath­tub alone while he washed dish­es, and returned to find her float­ing face down. Haley’s moth­er, Allison Layton Statham, tes­ti­fied at Mr. Duncan’s first bail hear­ing in July 2025, that she believed him to be inno­cent. Opposing Mr. Duncan’s release on bail, DA Tew’s office called him ​“a safe­ty risk not only to the victim’s fam­i­ly, but also the gen­er­al pub­lic.” Mr. Duncan’s release was wel­comed by his fam­i­ly and Haley’s surviving relatives.

Twelve indi­vid­u­als have been exon­er­at­ed and freed from Louisiana’s death row since 1973. Mr. Duncan is not includ­ed on DPI’s Exoneration List because pros­e­cu­tors have indi­cat­ed he may be retried. He would meet DPI’s cri­te­ria for inclu­sion if the charges against him are dis­missed, or he is acquit­ted on retrial.