KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Attorneys representing Kylr Yust will present their case Tuesday to the Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District, in hopes of overturning his April 2021 conviction.
Yust’s attorneys filed the appeal weeks after a jury found Yust guilty of voluntary manslaughter in the death of Kara Kopetsky and second-degree murder in the death of Jessica Runions. A judge sentenced Yust to as many as 45 years in prison for the two convictions.
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Attorneys representing the State of Missouri and Yust have spent the last two years filing briefs and asking for filing extensions in the appeals process.
In Tuesday’s oral arguments, which are set for 9 a.m. at the appeals court’s downtown Kansas City, Missouri, courthouse, Rosemary Ellen Percial is set to represent Yust, with attorney Andrew James Clarke representing the state.
In the original appeal filed May 10, 2021, attorneys representing Yust called for either a new judgment of acquittal or, alternatively, a new trial.
“The defendant relies on the motions filed and objections made as reflected in the record at the time as grounds for a new trial and as grounds reviewable hereafter,” Yust’s attorneys wrote in the 2021 appeal, citing several dozen moments in which “the court erred.”
There is no timeline for the appeals court to issue its ruling following Tuesday's oral arguments.
Yust, 34, remains jailed at Missouri's Crossroads Correctional Center in Cameron, Missouri, about an hour northeast of KCMO.
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