From the opinion, released Wednesday:
Kristine Bunch was convicted by a jury in 1996 of felony murder for the death of her young son, Anthony (“Tony”), in a fire at their mobile home and sentenced to sixty years. In 2006, Bunch began pursuing post-conviction relief, which was ultimately denied by the post- conviction court in 2010. In this appeal from the denial of post-conviction relief, Bunch raises three issues that we expand and restate as four: 1) whether the post-conviction court erred in concluding fire victim toxicology evidence offered at the post-conviction hearing was not newly-discovered evidence; 2) whether the post-conviction court erred in concluding fire investigation technique evidence offered at the post-conviction hearing was not newly- discovered evidence; 3) whether the post-conviction court erred in denying her relief on the basis of a failure by the State to turn over exculpatory evidence in contravention of the dictates of Brady v. Maryland; and 4) whether the post-conviction court erred in denying her relief because of ineffective assistance of trial counsel. We conclude the fire victim toxicology evidence does constitute newly-discovered evidence and the post-conviction court clearly erred in denying Bunch relief on this claim. We also conclude the State‟s failure to turn over a report from the ATF testing of floor samples violates Brady and the post- conviction court also clearly erred in denying Bunch relief on this claim. Because either of these two errors warrants a new trial, we need not address the remaining issues. We reverse and remand for a new trial.
Full decision…
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