Priest's Conviction Overturned

In the midst of the election yesterday, there did come some good news, at least. A priest who was convicted based upon the confused and sometimes contradictory testimony of the alleged victim, had his conviction overturned by the State Supreme Court.

The Missouri Supreme Court overturned the sodomy conviction of a St. Louis priest Tuesday, reversing what prosecutors had seen as a landmark victory for bringing charges on sex crime accusations from years, even decades, before.

The Rev. Thomas Graham always maintained his innocence. But in the end, the deciding issue was the same one that frustrated prosecutors from the start: a deadline on filing criminal charges, called a statute of limitations.

It's unknown how much of the taxpayers' money the St Louis City Prosecutor wasted in obtaining a conviction:

St. Louis prosecutors and law students had pored over old laws seeking a way around it, knowing there was no limit on bringing charges that are punishable by death or life in prison. They found an old sodomy law for which the punishment was not less than two years in prison. That meant, they reasoned, that the maximum could be life, and thus without a deadline.

They searched high and low for a way around the statute of limitations.

Graham has been free on $500,000 bond put up by the Archdiocese of St. Louis and lives in a treatment facility in Franklin County. He is on the sex offender registry, but Goeke said he will be removed from that.

Archdiocese spokesman Tony Huenneke said no decision has been made about reassigning Graham.