Dale Helmig was convicted of
killing his mother Norma Dean Helmig in 1993 and began serving his prison time
in 1996. Norma Helmig’s body was found
on August 1, 1993 strapped to a concrete block in the Osage River. As stated in the movie that we watched in
class, Dale had spent the night in a motel in Fulton and was not able to cross
the bridge over the Missouri River to his and his mother’s house in Linn,
Missouri. While at his motel, he had a
pizza delivered at 10:30pm. Schollmeyer
and Hulshof, the prosecuting attorneys speculated that the bridge reopened
therefore giving Dale a window in which he could have returned home and killed
his mother. Their speculated
motivation: a $200 phone bill. His conviction has been question by many
since he was sentenced to life in prison without parole in 1996.
In June of 2009, Helmig filed a
petition with the Missouri Supreme Court seeking a new trial. In his petition, he alleged that former U.S.
Representative Kenny Hulshof who the prosecuting attorney, withheld evidence
that would have proved his innocence and knowingly presented false evidence and
testimony. Helmig’s petition also stated
that Hulshof was motivated by his political campaigns. This is not Hulshof’s first time at being
negligent with his actions resulting in a unlawful conviction. Joshua Kezer served 15 years in prison on a
murder conviction and was freed in 2009 when a judge ruled that Hulshof again
withheld evidence and embellished details during his closing arguments.
As stated in the lawsuit, several
important factors that played a key role in his conviction were presented
falsely at the trial or not included at all.
An allegation that Dale had thrown coffee on his mother a few days prior
to her death are untrue, prosecutors referred to this “fact” many times. The second, Dale stayed away from Norma’s
house during several searches lead to the accusation of “conscious of guilt”
when Dale was told to not bring his children to the scene of the crime. The third, It was not disclosed at the trial
that Norma feared her husband and had previously sought an order of protection
against him and had also talked to the sheriff about buying a handgun. Finally, Dale’s attorney Christopher Jordan
showed signs of “clearly deficient” judgment and performance throughout the
trial.
In years since, Dale has filed a
federal lawsuit against Osage County, Osage County Sheriff Carl A. Fowler,
former deputy Paul Backes, and former Missouri State Highway Patrol Trooper
Robert Westfall claiming they all violated his constitutional rights. The lawsuit contains allegations of malicious
prosecution, false arrest, the willful withholding of exculpatory evidence,
fraudulent investigative techniques and a wrongful conviction. Ironically, Hulshof’s name is not mentioned
in the lawsuit to which Dale responds that Hulshof always supported his
innocence.
As future leaders in the criminal
justice system, we must ask ourselves how we can prevent wrongful convictions
such as Dale’s from happening again. We
must also question if at any time people within the police department,
prosecution attorney’s office, or defense attorney’s office working on the case
knew that Dale was being charged for a crime he did not commit and so, why did
they decide to stay silent. If this
happens to be the case, what factors could have played in this? Were people who knew the truth afraid of
losing their political power, peer recognition, or even careers if they were to
speak up? We may all come across a
future case like this and it is our duty to stand by our ethics and speak up
when needed.
I hadn't heard of this case before recently and have put a decent amount of time in to researching it myself over the last two weeks. It just seems fascinating to me that situations like this happen across the country more often than they should. The evidence of the case demonstrates a clear motive for Dale's father to have committed the crime as his mother was filing for divorce, but the police barely put any effort forth to look in to him. The actions of Dale's attorneys also surprised me, he should have never taken the case with such an existing conflict of interest in his representation. Also, thinking about corruption in politics, Hulshof is the perfect example. When looking over the facts of the case I find it hard to believe that any reasonable person would believe in Dale being guilty. Hulshof had to have known to some degree that he was sending an innocent man to prison, but did not care in the slightest as he was motivated to advance his own career.
ReplyDeleteThis case is a very sad case because a man missed nearly 15 years of his life due to wrongful convictions. This however is not the worst part. The worst part is that he lost his mother in the process and had to sit as he was convicted. There was many instances where Dale was to be freed but our justice system sometimes shows corruption. The Criminal Justice system has been flawed since its creation and unfortunately changing it now seems almost impossible. The prosecutor Hulshof i a prime example of corruption. This man lied on many accounts stating that his allegations were facts. He is no the only one to blame as there were probably many other officials acting corrupt to ensure the reputation and well-being of Hulshof. The thing that bothers me most about this case is the prior history on an exonerated person who was prosecuted by Hulshof. This corrupt man obviously shows no compassion nor cares about any evidence that is brought up. He simply fixes the cases to his liking and carries it out. This is exactly what the Criminal Justice system should be getting rid of.
ReplyDeleteFelt it was right to comment on this post since I went and saw Dale's presentation at the bone center. It amazes me how calm of person the man is after being imprisoned for 15 years while knowing the whole time he was innocent. Also he was never really able to grieve or morn for his mother's loss, that is another tragedy. Also I hope Dale wins his lawsuits to give the man some small kind of justice, because he was given none for so long. This is the worst kind of outcome in our criminal justice system, we would rather let a guilty man go free than have an innocent man be locked up. The reason this happened is due to the awful prosecutor Hulshof. A very corrupt man willing to ruin the live of an innocent man just to further his own agenda. I feel very bad for Dale and hope somehow some good karma will come his way in the future, he certainly deserves it.
ReplyDeleteI like that you wrote an article on this simply because of the fact that we could talk for days about this, and we probably could ask questions of Dale and Rich for days about their experience. Of course it is important to us because of our future careers in law enforcement. In our discussion group it was mentioned that the saddest thing is that Dale probably won't see anything near what he deserves in the sense of monetary compensation. It really is sad that our system is set up this way. Perhaps there should be a mandatory amount of compensation per year served if an individual is exonerated. This would save the individuals future injustice just in the fact that they wouldn't have to waste their time hiring lawyers to sue everything to get what is deserved of them. No one should protest something like that, and instead it should be incentive for us to be more careful to make sure we are NOT locking up innocent people! States aren't going to want to shell out large amounts of money for wrongful convictions, therefore the system in theory would work more diligently to ensure we aren't incarcerating innocent people.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the cycle of wrongful convicted people will stop, anytime in the near future. Politicians are constantly being watched and scrutinized by citizens and voters making sure they make all the correct moves during their political career. The problem with cases like Dale's case it really doesn't matter what really happened as long as someone is accountable for the crime. I think this is sad and this rips families apart, as Dale spoke about with his family.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Misty, I don’t think the cycle of wrongful conviction with stop anytime soon. As much as I would like to be able to completely rely on our criminal justice to provide adequate justice to those who in need, I can’t. Just like in any system there is corruption, greed and just pure laziness. People just wanting to make a name for themselves and not caring about the ones they are hurting. It is truly awful what happened to Dale and others like him. And I think it is even more awful that the government or justice system is doing nothing to help him now that he is released. I’m hoping with his upcoming lawsuits that he will be able to receive some type of restitution but nothing will be able to give him back the years of his life he lost in prison.
ReplyDeleteHonestly I believe that there is not a whole lot that Dale can do beside be an upstanding citizen once again. No amount of money is going to change the fact that 15 years of his life was taken away on speculation, jury bias, and unreliable officer testimony. Dale was forced to miss some of the best years of his and his children lives. All his kids are grown up he is a grandfather now, they haven't came close to finding out who actually murdered his mother. Dale has had a rough life and the only thing in my opinion that can change that is just to try and pick up the pieces where he left off and try and establish relationships with the family that will even speak to him and go from there. Dale seemed to me like an unbroken man that kept hope alive in his heart for those 15 years and I think that this is a lesson that we can all learn from.
ReplyDeleteAndrew Serena
After hearing about this case and then getting to meet Dale this past week in class brings up a lot of questions. For one I agree that innocent people will still be sent to prison for crimes they didn't commit because of corruption in the justice system and police departments who get tunnel vision on a murder case. I feel like something really needs to be done for people who are wrongly convicted once they are released from prison. The states should be making serious repayments to these people. People like Dale hardly get anything in return once released. Thats a crime in itself.
ReplyDeletegreat post and I liked how it relates to everything we have been covering. Most notably how in criminal justice systems there are flaws. in this case I see one major flaw. This Hulshof guy as an example of structural failure. This wasn't the first time he had sent an innocent man to prison and he obviously knew what he was doing. And his motive behind it was the bettering of his own personal career. Its sad that cases like this do happen and the "actors" that make up the justice system who swear to protect us don't always do that when all they can think about is themselves. I also find it really sad that Dale is probably going to receive next to nothing in monetary compensation after the state of Alabama robbed him of 15 years of his life
ReplyDeleteGreat post.After learning more about this case and getting to listen to Dale speak to us, I have learned much more about so many things and received answers to many unanswered questions.I give so many props to the Helmig's for sticking this through and for always fighting and holding on to their hope. If there is one thing I will always remember and take away from this would be when the Helmig's preached about always telling the truth and having hope. They said the truth will sometime come out, unfortunately for Dale, it took 15 years, but he never gave up hope.
ReplyDeleteBefore we were given the opportunity to learn about this case, I had absolutely no idea who he even was or why his specific case was such a big deal. Something that seems to stick out to me when he came into class was that Dale believed that the legal system would be on his side because he was innocent. It's hard to believe, but something that most people would probably do if they were in that predicament. We will always have people that are wrongfully convicted in some way or another. We learn in class of ethics and how we are the future and need to help improve the criminal justice system, even if it is one person at a time. This man had a chunk of his life taken away and I appreciate the fact that he is staying strong and has a somewhat positive attitude on life for having served 15 years behind bars. Adjusting to life now is going to be the biggest challenge because the world doesn't stop when your out for such a long period of time. I wish the best for him and his family and hopefully like Dale said out legal system will improve for the better.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great post, because we just spent a couple of days talking about this cases and listening to dale and his brother. The bad part about this is that Dale can only live his life now and fish. He is try to file a lawsuit against the men that put him there, but he just needs to enjoy life and make up the time with his family and friends.
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ReplyDeleteI think that this whole situation is a complete failure of our justice system. Certain things in the court system itself such as ethics and having to prove the person guilty beyond a reasonable doubt are supposed to prevent these kinds of things from happening. Obviously, that did not happen in this case and an innocent man had to spend 15 years in prison for murdering his own mother. I am so happy that Dale finally got out of prison but am sad that it took 15 years to do so. I hope that he can enjoy the rest of his life and rekindle his lost relationships. I also hope that he gets back on his feet financially. I can only imagine how he feels, not being able to support himself...I really hope that he can get back on his feet!
ReplyDeleteI think that Dale's talk was great. I think it was incredible the way he stayed on task and fought back from prison. The determination and courage that was shown by his brother was truly inspirational. I think that the amount of time that was put in by both him and his brother researching the legal aspects of his case was really impressive. It was really awesome being able to see him and ask him questions, just to be able to see that hard work does pay off and that injustices can be reversed gives me hope for our future careers.
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