Court Of Appeals Hears Case Of ‘Innocent Man’ Karl Fontenot

The fate of an Oklahoma man featured in the Netflix series “The Innocent Man” is now in the hands of the U.S, Court of Appeals. Justices heard the appeal of Karl Fontenot Tuesday morning.

The hearing comes after a federal judge ruled last year the state withheld evidence providing “solid proof of Mr. Fontenot's probable innocence” and said either the case should be retried, or Fontenot set free. The Oklahoma Attorney General's office appealed that ruling on statute of limitations and procedural issues.

After spending 35 years behind bars, Fontenot is now out of prison on supervised release as judges mull over the strongly worded opinion from a federal judge. At the heart of Tuesday's appeal: a thousand pages of evidence police and prosecutors didn't turn over until they were forced to years after Fontenot's trials were over. 

A point one of the judges asked about Tuesday.

“The jury never heard this evidence correct?” one of the judges asked. “None of it? All 860 pages, plus everything that’s been trickling in after that.”

Prosecutors argued Fontenot’s legal team should have acted on that evidence when they got a majority of it from the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation back in 1992.

“Petitioners own inaction that his claims could have been submitted much earlier,” argued Oklahoma Assistant Attorney General Sheri Johnson. “The petitioner is relying on the fact that 30 plus years has passed and evidence has been misplaced and witnesses have died, and investigators have died.”

Fontenot's attorneys countered everything took so long because the state wouldn't hand over the evidence even when instructed by two court orders and federal subpoena.

“Your honor Karl Fontenot is innocent, he was in prison for 35 years for a crime he didn’t commit, and Judge Payne found that, based on the misconduct over that period of time from the State of Oklahoma.”