(CN) - A Utah man who was found guilty of beating another man to death at a convenience store in 2001 could have his conviction vacated after the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office concluded that the prosecution was compromised.
Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill filed a petition Monday to vacate the conviction of Adrian Whitfield Gordon for the murder of Lee Lundskog.
"Though there was not a clear finding of innocence, there was a clear determination that Mr. Gordon was not given a fair chance at trial," Gill said in a press release. "If, as prosecutors, we find evidence that a conviction lacks integrity, we have an ethical and moral obligation to vacate that conviction, or the justice that our system promises will lack integrity as well."
The petition to vacate was the result of a recommendation from the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office's Conviction Integrity Unit and an investigation by the Rocky Mountain Innocence Project, a nonprofit legal organization that works to identify and overturn wrongful convictions.
An attorney for Gordon from the Rocky Mountain Innocence Project argued to the District Attorney's Conviction Integrity Unit that Gordon's conviction lacked integrity due to the fact that the lead detective in the police investigation into Lundskog's death failed to investigate or even mention that another man was identified as a possible suspect.
The case will proceed anew if the court grants the petition.
Lundskog, 50, was discovered dead behind a 7-Eleven in Salt Lake City on Sept. 29, 2001, as if he had been stomped on. Gordon, then 20, was arrested, tried and convicted that same year on one count of first-degree murder.
Gordon, who has maintained his innocence, was sentenced to five years to life in prison. Prosecution of the murder charge from murder to conviction took 82 days.
"This timeline is not only unusual but is unheard of for a case of this nature and with such immense consequences for not only the person charged, but the family members of the person killed and the community as a whole," Gill wrote in the petition. "This timeline, while surprising at first glance, is even more troubling when considering the problematic treatment of the case, leading the [district attorney's office] to request vacation of Mr. Gordon's conviction."
The main factor in vacating the conviction originated from a phone call from an anonymous woman who reported the location of Lundskog's killer. Police located a man, identified in the petition as Anthony Brown, at an apartment where he was arrested on outstanding warrants.
However, the police report about the arrest was filed under a separate case number from the Lundskog case, and was not discovered until the Rocky Mountain Innocence Project subpoenaed the Salt Lake City Police Department for the information in 2019. None of that information made it to court though, Gill wrote.
The Brady Rule, which is designed to protect a defendant's right to due process, requires that prosecutors disclose any potential evidence that could be favorable to a defendant. The existence of Brown as a potential suspect in Lundskog's death calls Gordon's conviction into question, Gill wrote.
Other key evidence surrounding Lundskog's death was omitted or not collected, according to a report from the District Attorney's Conviction Integrity Unit.
Gordon challenged the testimony of eyewitnesses at the convenience store on the night of Lundskog's death as insufficient and unreliable in an unsuccessful appeal to the Utah Supreme Court. Gordon continued to challenge the conviction over the next two decades.
Gordon was paroled in 2023 after serving more than 20 years in prison.
"We appreciate the involvement of the Salt Lake City Police Department and the attorney general's office as we worked toward this decision," Gill said in the press release. "We are grateful for input from the family of the victim in this case, Mr. Lee Lundskog, and will continue to seek justice for them in this matter."
Source: Courthouse News Service
