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A new trial will proceed for an Elkhart man who won release from prison in April 2020 after a judge granted his petition for post-conviction relief. The Attorney General’s Office had argued the trial court erred in the ruling, but the Indiana Court of Appeals disagreed.

Andrew Royer is a client of the IU McKinney Wrongful Conviction Clinic and Professor Fran Watson, ’80. Professor Watson represented Royer as co-counsel with Elliot Slosar of the Exoneration Justice Project at Notre Dame Law School. Royer was released in April 2020. He was convicted of murder in 2005 and sentenced to 55 years in prison. He was a co-defendant in the case with Lana Canen, who had already been exonerated. The judge found, among other things, that Royer’s due process rights were violated, and that the state suppressed material favorable to the defense. This Indiana Court of Appeals’ April 2021 ruling in State v. Royer moves Royer closer to a new trial.

“The decision is satisfying on many levels after the intensity of efforts of professors, lawyers, and students from IU McKinney and Notre Dame law schools,” Professor Watson said. “We care deeply about Andy Royer, an innocent man victimized himself by the criminal justice system’s flaws. Footnote 20 is my favorite, wherein the Honorable Melissa May, writing for the court, notes, ‘. . . when law enforcement officers lie under oath, they ignore their publicly funded training, betray their oath of office, and signal to the public at large that perjury is something not to be taken seriously. This type of conduct diminishes the public trust in law enforcement and is beneath the standard of conduct to be expected of any law enforcement officer.’”

Professor Watson is the founding director of the Wrongful Conviction Clinic at IU McKinney. She is a clinical professor of law and teaches in Law and Forensic Science, and Lawyering Practice, along with the Wrongful Conviction Clinic.