The Oregon Supreme Court has thrown out the conviction of a young man who was 19 years old when prosecutors said he used a sledgehammer to bludgeon to death his cousin’s great-grandmother. The high court reversed Micus Duane Ward’s aggravated murder and murder convictions, finding that the prosecution didn’t prove that Ward made a “knowing, intelligent and voluntary” waiver of his right to refrain from self-incrimination when detectives interrogated him and prosecutors later used his statements to incriminate him before a jury. Ward was sentenced in 2016 to “true life” — meaning he had no chance of ever getting out — for the 2013 killing of 71-year-old Jacqueline Bell.
