Where I’m from, the fact that some evidence was taken and not tested could be grounds for an appeal. With how fast CW accepted and agreed to a plea, it could also be argued (over here at least) that his counsel let him down and didn’t fully explain everything that would happen the minute he pleaded or failed to explain that taking it to trial was in his best interests. I’m not saying that he didn’t receive proper counsel or that they definitely let him down, I’ve just seen cases where a plea deal was agreed to and the defendant has gone on to use insufficient counsel to try and appeal and it had taken a lot longer than 3 months for the defendant to agree to a plea. I don’t know everything about the US legal system, so could any of this be used in his favour?

I’m also not saying he deserves to be free or that he isn’t exactly where he should be. However, I do genuinely believe he was let down by his Public Defender because the reason CW took the plea was to avoid the death penalty, but it would have been rare that he would have actually been put to death anyway. (Colorado has since abolished the DP back in March too) Plus they should have ordered a psych eval for Chris as he was isolated from the time of his arrest, in Protective Custody 23 hours a day and not allowed to speak with family at all, not just not about his plea. He had other inmates screaming abuse at him 24/7 telling him he should kill himself and how. He also claims to have seen his dead grandmother and daughter in his cell. That hardly screams competent IMO