Ramsey gave Sale a copy of the judge’s report. Sale was hooked. The two men hit it off. They talked by phone. Sale frequently dropped by Ramsey’s office.

“I kinda let him have a run through my files,” Ramsey says.

Litigation — and the tiny details that are often central to it — can be a lonely slog. The defense attorney used Sale as a sounding board. Sale ate it up. They even once made the four-hour drive together to Chillicothe to meet a group of Woodworth supporters.

Ramsey felt he needed all the support he could find. The Missouri attorney general’s office, which at the time was prosecuting the case, seemed determined to go to a third trial.

When Ramsey first took on Woodworth’s case several years ago, he called Sean O’Brien, a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City who helps run the Midwest Innocence Project. O’Brien cautioned Ramsey that the attorney general’s office would fight a public relations battle in addition to the courtroom wrangling.

The attorney general’s office did not respond to a request for comment.