2 men go free after their convictions were overturned in a case involving a discredited detective

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Two men were freed Wednesday after their convictions were overturned in a 2009 double homicide whose investigation was overseen by a discredited white Kansas City, Kansas, police detective.

Forty-year-old Dominique Moore said he was ''thankful and blessed'' after his release from a state prison in El Dorado. And cheers from a crowd of relatives greeted Cedric Warren, 34, as he walked out of jail in the county where he was convicted nearly 15 years ago in the drug house shooting that killed Charles Ford and Larry Ledoux.

The men's life sentences had carried no chance of parole for 25 years.

''I really want to cry, but I can't. That's how overwhelmed I am," Warren's father, Cedric Toney, said after a vehicle carrying his son pulled away from the jail. Warren himself was too overcome to talk to a throng of reporters who awaited his release.

Toney alleged misconduct from Roger Golubski, who died last week in an apparent suicide just before the start of his criminal trial over allegations that he sexually assaulted Black women.

But that had nothing to do with Wyandotte County Judge Aaron Roberts' decision to toss Warren's convictions on Monday and Moore's on Wednesday. Roberts found that prosecutors failed to turn over information about the severe mental health issues of a key witness. The witness had schizophrenia, and offered a shifting account of what happened, the defense wrote in court filings.

Not aired in court was Toney's claim that before Golubski supervised the investigation that led to his son's arrest, the former detective stalked Toney's daughter and his son's mother. He said he suspected his son's first stop would be their graves; both died while he was incarcerated.

Wyandotte County District Attorney Mark Dupree could have retried Warren and Moore but announced Wednesday that he wouldn't, paving the way for their release.

He said Golubski's involvement had nothing to do with the decision and said it wasn't an exoneration. Instead, he said another trial wouldn't be ''just or fair'' because a wrong was done by his predecessors who withheld the key evidence.

Since taking office in 2017, Dupree said his office has increased training on fairness and is nearly done digitizing thousands of old cases. That is a key step in a $1.7 million effort to look for potential misconduct in the cases involving Golubski and others.

''It's not about getting the conviction. It's about getting a just outcome and doing what is right,'' Dupree said.

Brittany Robinson, Warren's cousin, said the family always maintained hope, convinced he was innocent.

Moore, too, said he was innocent as he drove home from prison with his attorneys, eagerly awaiting barbecue after 15 years of prison food.

''I am just thankful that the court has seen the wrong that has happened in my case," he said.

Prosecutors say that, for years, Golubski preyed on female residents in poor neighborhoods, demanding sexual favors and sometimes threatening to harm or jail their relatives if they refused.

In addition to two sets of federal charges, one lawsuit involving McIntyre and his mother has been settled, and two other lawsuits are pending.

One of Warren's attorneys, Cheryl Pilate, said she and other attorneys continue looking into cases Golubski worked.