25 June 2023 :
(June 15, 2023) - Lamont Hunter Released From Death Row on Plea Agreement Amid Review of New Evidence
54-year-old Lamont Hunter, of Cincinnati, Ohio, was granted release on bond on Wednesday, June 14, after a judge threw out his 16-year-old conviction. He was accused of killing a child he said fell down a flight of basement stairs.
On Thursday, June 15, he pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and child endangering. He was sentenced to the almost 17-and-a-half years he has been in prison and was expected to be released on Thursday afternoon.
The plea deal which sees Hunter pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter aligns with what he has always said led to the death of three-year-old Trustin in 2006, one of his attorneys, Erin Barnhart, said outside court.
Prosecutors agreed to offer a plea deal after Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Christian A. Jenkins set bond for Mr. Hunter and dismissed prosecutors’ request to deny his bond.
Mr. Hunter was convicted and sentenced to death in 2007 on charges of aggravated murder, child endangerment, and rape in the death of his son who suffered fatal injuries after accidentally falling down the stairs. In his appeal, his attorneys argued that newly discovered evidence cast doubt on the prosecution’s theory that Mr. Hunter caused Trustin’s injuries. In March 2023, the prosecutors agreed to a new trial and vacated his capital convictions because the deputy coroner who initially ruled the death as homicide changed her opinion in a 2021 deposition. Based on her review of evidence that she was not previously given at trial, she testified that the cause of death was undetermined and the injuries she had attributed to sexual assault were accidentally inflicted at the hospital.
During last week’s hearing, Judge Christian A. Jenkins imposed a sentence of time served that was agreed upon as part of the plea deal. Mr. Hunter’s attorney, Erin Barnhart, said, “Trustin was in his care. He accidentally fell down the stairs. Lamont knows that, in a way, he’s responsible - he was the caregiver. But he never harmed Trustin. He loved Trustin.” Assistant Prosecutor Seth Tieger appreciated Mr. Hunter’s accountability by stating “that went a long way with us.”
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/lamont-hunter-released-from-death-row-on-plea-agreement-amid-review-of-new-evidence
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/death-row-inmate-freed-after-30246191
