(CNN) — The St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office has filed a motion asking a Missouri court to set aside the conviction of a man who prosecutors say has served more than 30 years of a life sentence for a murder he didn’t commit.

Christopher Dunn, now 52, was convicted in 1991 and sentenced to life in prison without parole for the murder of Ricco Rogers, 15, who was shot and killed on May 18, 1990, according to the motion.

“For the last 33 years, Mr. Dunn has been incarcerated for a crime in which there is clear and convincing evidence he did not commit,” a statement from the circuit attorney’s office Monday reads. “We have an ethical duty to work to correct this injustice.”

The motion says Dunn – who was 19 at the time of the shooting, according to his attorneys – was convicted on the eyewitness testimony of a 15-year-old and a 12-year-old who have since recanted their testimony under oath and admitted that they lied. No physical evidence tied Dunn to the crime, the court document, filed Friday in the 22nd Judicial Circuit of Missouri, says.

During the appeals process, Dunn’s mother and sister testified he was home on the night of the killing, watching television, and had talked to a friend on the phone, according to the motion.

“We are hopeful his wrongful conviction is set aside for the sake of Mr. Dunn, his family, and the people of the city of St. Louis,” the prosecutors’ statement reads.

According to the motion, Dunn’s case was reviewed by Texas County Circuit Court Judge William Hickle in 2020, who upon reviewing the evidence said, “This court does not believe that any jury would now convict Christopher Dunn under these facts,” but under Missouri law, the judge can’t overturn a conviction just because a person isn’t actually guilty unless the death penalty is involved.

Dunn’s attorneys with the Midwest Innocence Project said Missouri is the only state in the nation with such limitations on innocence claims.

“Until the legislature changes the law, only a prosecutor can petition a court to free an innocent defendant sentenced to anything less than death,” the lawyers said in a news release.

The next steps are for the circuit court to hold a hearing on the prosecutor’s motion, according to Tricia Rojo Bushnell, executive director of the Midwest Innocence Project.

Bushnell said the process where a prosecutor files the motion, followed by a hearing, has been used to exonerate other wrongfully convicted inmates.

According to Bushnell, the Missouri attorney general has a right to participate in that hearing, but it is the judge that decides the motion.

CNN has sought comment from Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey.

It is unclear whether a hearing has been scheduled in Dunn’s case.

“We thank the circuit attorney’s office for her efforts to pursue justice in Chris’ case, and we look forward to presenting the evidence of his innocence to the court,” Dunn’s attorneys said.

St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner announced her resignation earlier this month after mounting pressure and criticism regarding her performance in office, but the circuit attorney’s office has said she is working during the transition.

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 (CNN) — Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has a message for his fellow Republicans looking to win back the White House: “We cannot get distracted.”

“We have to tell people, No. 1, what we’re for. No. 2, that we’re going to be focused on the future and what we’re going to do for the voters in our state or the American people. And then, No. 3, we have to do a simple thing: We have to win,” Kemp told CNN’s Jake Tapper Sunday on “State of the Union.”

The governor’s remarks came a day after he’d told donors at a Republican National Committee retreat in Nashville that the GOP needed to move on from the 2020 presidential election. In his speech, Kemp offered a thinly veiled dig at former President Donald Trump and his continued election grievances, without naming him, saying, “Not a single swing voter will vote for our nominee if they choose to talk about the 2020 election being stolen.”

Trump, currently seen as the front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination, has repeatedly argued since leaving office that Republicans cannot succeed — either at the ballot box or legislatively — if they turn a blind eye to the past. But candidates who backed his false election claims did poorly in the midterm elections last fall in key swing states Trump will need to win back the White House in 2024.

Trump is also under a cloud of legal woes. In New York, a hush money payment to an adult-film star shortly before the 2016 election has resulted in his indictment by a Manhattan grand jury over his alleged role in the scheme. And in Atlanta, a select grand jury has investigated efforts by Trump and allies to overturn his election loss in Georgia in 2020.

“I can’t control what the judicial branch is doing or what a local prosecutor is doing in many ways, but what we can control … is what we’re focused on,” Kemp said Sunday.

“If we get distracted and talk about other things that the Democrats want to talk about, like these investigations — regardless of what you think about the politics of those — if we get distracted every day and let the media just talk about that, that only helps Joe Biden,” he added. “It does not give us a path for Republicans to win.”

Asked by Tapper if Trump was unelectable nationwide, Kemp demurred.

“That’s for the people to decide,” he said.

Tension between Trump and Kemp has been simmering for years. When Kemp refused to overturn Biden’s 2020 win in Georgia, Trump made the governor his No. 1 enemy, publicly railing against him throughout 2021 and recruiting former US Sen. David Perdue to challenge Kemp in a GOP primary. Through it all, Trump failed to draw Kemp into a fight, and the governor won his 2022 primary overwhelmingly before handily defeating Democratic opponent Stacey Abrams in the November general election.

Kemp said Sunday that Republicans will need to draw a distinction with what he referred to as “the disaster of the Biden administration” to win next year, pointing to border security, high inflation and energy policy.

“I think we’re going to have a lot of good candidates that, if they focus on those things, we have got a great chance of winning the White House in 2024,” the governor said.

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 (CNN) — All five former Memphis police officers who were fired for their actions in the arrest of Tyre Nichols earlier this month have been charged with his murder, according to Shelby County court records.

Taddarius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith, Emmitt Martin III, and Desmond Mills Jr. have each been charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, two charges of aggravated kidnapping, two charges of official misconduct and one charge of official oppression, according to Shelby County criminal court records. Their attorneys did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Live updates on the Tyre Nichols case

Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy is set to provide an update on the investigation at 2 p.m. CT Thursday that will include an announcement of criminal charges, a source close to the investigation told CNN’s Don Lemon.

The source also said authorities expect to release police video of the stop on Friday.

The criminal charges come about three weeks after Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, was hospitalized after a traffic stop and “confrontation” with Memphis police that family attorneys have called a savage beating.

Nichols died from his injuries on January 10, three days after the arrest, authorities said.

The five Memphis police officers, who are also Black, were fired for violating policies on excessive use of force, duty to intervene and duty to render aid, the department said. All joined the department in the last six years, according to police. Other Memphis police officers are still under investigation for department policy violations related to the incident, the chief said.

Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis condemned the actions of the arresting officers as “a failing of basic humanity” and called for peaceful protests ahead of the release of video of the arrest.

“This is not just a professional failing. This is a failing of basic humanity toward another individual,” Davis said in a YouTube video Wednesday, her first on-camera comments about the arrest. “This incident was heinous, reckless, and inhumane, and in the vein of transparency, when the video is released in the coming days, you will see this for yourselves.”

Second-degree murder is defined in Tennessee as a “knowing killing of another” and is considered a Class A felony punishable by between 15 to 60 years in prison. The charge is less serious than first-degree murder, defined as “premeditated and intentional,” yet more significant than voluntary manslaughter, defined as “intentional or knowing killing of another in a state of passion produced by adequate provocation sufficient to lead a reasonable person to act in an irrational manner.”

Video of arrest set to be released soon

Authorities have not publicly released video of the arrest, but Nichols’ family and attorneys were shown the video on Monday. They said the footage shows officers severely beating Nichols and compared it to the Los Angeles police beating of Rodney King in 1991.

Nichols had “extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating,” according to the attorneys, citing preliminary results of an autopsy they commissioned.

Nichols’ arrest and ensuing death comes amid heightened scrutiny of how police treat Black people, particularly since the Minneapolis police murder of George Floyd in May 2020 and the mass protest movement known as Black Lives Matter.

Davis, the first Black woman to serve as Memphis police chief, said she anticipated the release of the video in the coming days would cause public reaction and urged citizens to be nonviolent amid “our outrage and frustration.”

“I expect our citizens to exercise their First Amendment right to protest to demand action and results. But we need to ensure our community is safe in this process,” Davis said. “None of this is a calling card for inciting violence or destruction on our community or against our citizens.”

Law enforcement agencies nationwide are bracing for protests and potential unrest following the release of video, multiple sources told CNN. The Major Cities Chiefs Association, one of the leading professional law enforcement organizations, has convened several calls with member agencies, according to the group’s executive director, Laura Cooper.

A law enforcement source familiar with the national coordination told CNN that in at least one of those calls Memphis police told participants to be on alert for unrest. The source added there was an additional call among Washington, DC, law enforcement agencies to coordinate responses and share information.

What led to Nichols’ arrest and death

Nichols, the father of a 4-year-old, had worked with his stepfather at FedEx for about nine months, his family said. He was fond of skateboarding in Shelby Farms Park, Starbucks with friends and photographing sunsets, and he had his mother’s name tattooed on his arm, the family said. He also had the digestive issue known as Crohn’s disease and so was a slim 140 to 145 pounds despite his 6-foot-3-inch height, his mother said.

On January 7, he was pulled over by Memphis officers on suspicion of reckless driving, police said in their initial statement on the incident. As officers approached the vehicle, a “confrontation” occurred and Nichols fled on foot, police said. The officers pursued him and they had another “confrontation” before he was taken into custody, police said.

Nichols then complained of shortness of breath, was taken to a local hospital in critical condition and died three days later, police said.

In Memphis police scanner audio, a person says there was “one male Black running” and called to “set up a perimeter.” Another message says “he’s fighting at this time.”

Attorneys for Nichols’ family who watched video of the arrest on Monday described it as a heinous police beating that lasted three long minutes. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump said Nichols was tased, pepper-sprayed and restrained, and family attorney Antonio Romanucci said he was kicked.

“He was defenseless the entire time. He was a human piñata for those police officers. It was an unadulterated, unabashed, nonstop beating of this young boy for three minutes. That is what we saw in that video,” Romanucci said. “Not only was it violent, it was savage.”

Two members of the city’s fire department who were part of Nichols’ “initial patient care” also were relieved of duty, a fire spokesperson said. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation announced an investigation into Nichols’ death and the US Department of Justice and FBI have opened a civil rights investigation.

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(CNN) — Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis called on state lawmakers to make permanent existing penalties for companies that require all employees get the Covid-19 vaccination, his latest move to curtail pandemic mitigation efforts.

The proposal would extend indefinitely measures DeSantis signed in 2021 that made Florida the first state in the country to threaten businesses with fines if they required workers to get the Covid-19 vaccine. Those measures pitted DeSantis and Florida against the federal government over President Joe Biden’s efforts to get the country’s workforce inoculated — a standoff that helped boost the Republican governor’s popularity among conservatives.

Now, as DeSantis considers running for president, he is reinstigating that battle.

This time, DeSantis has encouraged skepticism of Covid-19 vaccines altogether, staking out a position far to the right of his top potential rival for the GOP nomination, former President Donald Trump, who continues to count the development of the vaccines as one of his administration’s chief accomplishments.

“They were wrong about lockdowns,” DeSantis said Tuesday. “They were wrong about mask mandates. They were wrong about school closures. They were wrong about mRNA shots. They were wrong about vax passports and vaccine mandates.”

DeSantis wants to make permanent laws passed in November 2021 after he called a special session in response to the Biden administration’s federal vaccine mandate. Those measures, scheduled to expire at the end of June, included prohibitions on mask requirements in schools and government and prohibited vaccines as a condition to travel.

DeSantis had called on lawmakers to ban vaccine mandates outright and inflict punitive penalties on businesses that didn’t comply and threatened to pull state protections against Covid-19-related businesses to any company that followed Biden’s mandate. But the Republican-controlled legislature wouldn’t go that far. Instead, the bill that ended up on DeSantis’ desk said businesses could require vaccination as a condition of employment if workers are allowed to opt-out through a medical or religious exemption, proof of natural immunity or by submitting to regular testing for Covid-19.

It’s not clear if DeSantis would extend the existing limitations on vaccine requirements or if he is suggesting new legislation that would ban any business from making vaccines a condition of employment.

In addition to proposing permanent prohibitions on strict mask and vaccine mandates, DeSantis also wants to prevent doctors from losing their medical license if they stake out positions that contradict medical consensus. During Tuesday’s event in Panama City Beach, DeSantis welcomed to the stage a local dermatologist who has spread unsubstantiated Covid-19 conspiracies on Twitter.

“We want to have our medical practitioners, particularly our physicians, be protected with the freedom to be able to speak the truth,” DeSantis said.

Following Tuesday’s announcement, state House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell, a Tampa Democrat, called DeSantis “the number one peddler of a dangerous message from the anti-vax establishment.”

“It is a fake ideology with real consequences — 84,000-plus dead Floridians and counting,” Driskell said. “Masks work, the CDC has proven that. The mRNA vaccines work.”

DeSantis’ more recent skepticism of vaccines is a reversal of his efforts in early 2021, when his administration worked aggressively to make shots available to seniors and the governor boasted about the state’s speed at distributing the vaccine.

“Florida Leads the Nation in Vaccines for Ages 65+ with Seniors First Approach,” said a January 2021 press release from his office.

At one point, DeSantis appeared on Fox News alongside a 100-year-old World War II veteran receiving a dose live on air. At a press conference in July 2021, DeSantis delivered a full-throated backing of the vaccine’s effectiveness against the Covid-19 virus.

“If you are vaccinated, fully vaccinated, the chance of you getting seriously ill or dying from Covid is effectively zero,” he said at the time. “These vaccines are saving lives. They are reducing mortality.”

However, as DeSantis set his sights on a potential showdown with Trump for the GOP nomination in 2024, his public support for the vaccine began to wane. He refused to say if he had received a booster shot — a position Trump called “gutless” in a 2022 interview — and he has made Florida an outlier in its approach to the vaccine in recent months. Under DeSantis, Florida became the only state to recommend against vaccinating children and the state Department of Health has also discouraged men under 40 from getting the mRNA Covid-19 vaccine because of concerns about side effects.

Cases of myocarditis and pericarditis, inflammation of the heart and heart lining, are rare after mRNA vaccines, although they are more likely to occur among young men. The risk of heart inflammation is far greater from Covid-19 than from vaccination.

DeSantis in December also successfully lobbied the Florida Supreme Court to empanel a grand jury to investigate the development, distribution and promotion of the vaccine.

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Memphis police have released surveillance photos of two suspects they believe killed rapper Young Dolph as he was reportedly buying cookies at a popular local store on Wednesday.

The police department said it obtained video surveillance showing the suspects getting out of a white two-door Mercedes-Benz armed with firearms and approaching the rapper as he was inside the shop. The suspects, whose faces were partially covered, shot Young Dolph several times before fleeing the scene, police said.

Young Dolph, whose real name is Adolph Robert Thornton Jr., was killed inside Makeda’s Homemade Butter Cookies. The 36-year-old rapper is survived by two children.

The police department posted the photos on its Twitter account, noting that no arrests have been made, and the investigation is ongoing.

“This shooting is another example of the senseless gun violence we are experiencing locally and nationwide. Our hearts go out to the Thornton family and all who are affected by this horrific act of violence,” Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis said Wednesday.

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland tweeted Young Dolph’s death “serves as another reminder of the pain that violent crime brings with it. My thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends.”

Rapper was nearly killed in a 2017 shooting

Young Dolph was a native of Chicago who grew up in Memphis. He released his debut album, “King of Memphis” in 2016, and he’s also known for “Rich Slave,” which dropped in 2020 and rose to No. 5 on the Billboard 200 chart.

He had several hits in his career, including “Blue Diamonds,” “Preach,” “100 Shots” and “RNB” featuring Megan Thee Stallion.

In 2017, he was nearly killed in a shooting incident in Hollywood. He spent weeks hospitalized after sustaining three gunshot wounds.

“I’ve been targeted since I was 17, 18, 19,” Young Dolph told The Guardian about the incident in a 2018 interview. “I just knew that I was good.”

He added that he wasn’t “a person that lives in fear.”

Young Dolph’s management company APA said the world had lost an icon. “His dedication, drive, hard work and loyalty to all those around him always came first and he will be deeply missed. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family at this most difficult time.” a representative said in a statement to Variety

Fellow artists and fans paid tributes.

“God bless Dolph 🕊 independent Memphis rapper born in chicago. loved by millions of ppl,” Chance the Rapper tweeted. “Always showed love everytime I seen him this is tragic God bless his family man.”

“R.I.P. to my friend Dolph. this broke my heart,” wrote Gucci Mane.

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