Topeka ? When Wallace L. Dixon III was convicted of killing a mother and her infant son in an apartment explosion in Emporia, the trial judge kept the verdict under wraps for one day.

That decision and actions by prosecutors warrant a new trial for Dixon, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled Friday.

The state’s highest court also upheld the felony murder convictions of Dixon’s co-defendant, Ethan M. Griffin, who was found guilty in a separate trial.

The two trials stemmed from the same case. Dana Hudson, 19, an Emporia State University student, and her 13-month-old son, Gabriel, were killed by an explosion caused by a natural gas leak in the next-door apartment on July 29, 2001. Five others were injured in the apartment complex.

Dixon, 33, was convicted on May 6, 2002, of two counts of felony murder and related charges.

When the jury reached its verdict, District Judge Merlin Wheeler cleared the courtroom of reporters and spectators before the decision was announced.

The judge said he wanted to wait until the Griffin jury was sworn in before releasing the verdict, which occurred the next day. Griffin was convicted on May 14.

On appeal, Dixon claimed he was deprived of his right to a public trial. The court agreed.

“We conclude in the present case that it was error for the trial court to close the courtroom for announcement of the verdicts,” Justice Donald Allegrucci wrote for the court.

The court concluded “that the closure was inconsistent with the substantial rights of Dixon to a public trial and not harmless error.”

The court also accepted Dixon’s argument that prosecutors erred in presenting four witnesses who testified about telephone calls Dixon made to his attorney and a meeting with his attorney after the explosion, but prior to his arrest.

“The timing of the contacts is significant to defendant’s complaint because it implies the question of why someone who was not guilty would contact his or attorney before being arrested or questioned or even contacted by police,” the court said.

It also said the testimony, plus the prosecution commenting on it during closing arguments, “improperly highlight defendant’s conduct for the jury on five separate occasions.”

Griffin didn’t fare so well. He raised 10 issues, including a claim that because evidence showed Dixon knocked over the gas stove and created the leak, it was improper for prosecution to say he was responsible for the deaths.

The court said it “has long recognized that all participants in a crime are equally guilty of that crime and any other reasonably foreseeable crime committed in carrying out the intended crime.”

Prosecutors maintain that Dixon was enraged because Schelesea Shaw had left their Topeka home, and he thought she was living with her sister in Emporia.