ST. LOUIS (AP) — The Missouri Supreme Court has overturned a first-degree assault conviction against a man allegedly involved in a deadly stabbing at a bar.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that judges unanimously overturned 38-year-old Andrew Barnett's 2015 convictions of assault and armed criminal action Tuesday.
Barnett was convicted for a 2014 knife attack at a St. Louis bar that left Kristopher Schmeiderer paralyzed from the neck down.
Schmeiderer later died of complications from the attack.
Barnett was sentenced to 30 years in prison. He appealed, saying that a St. Louis judge refused to allow jurors to consider self-defense. Prosecutors argued against self-defense because Barnett denied stabbing Schmeiderer.
Supreme Court judges ruled that the St. Louis judge was wrong not to present a self-defense instruction to jurors.
Barnett will get a new trial.
