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Faulty hair forensics used to convict executed defendant

I don't suppose this will change anybody's mind on the death penalty pro or con, but it appears Texas may have executed a defendant based on a bogus forensic hair comparison. The Texas Observer has the scoop in a story which opens:Claude Jones always claimed that he wasn?t the man who walked into an East Texas liquor store in 1989 and shot the owner. He professed his innocence right up until the moment he was strapped to a gurney in the Texas execution chamber and put to death on Dec. 7, 2000. His murder conviction was based on a single piece of forensic evidence recovered from the crime scene?a strand of hair?that prosecutors claimed belonged to Jones.But DNA tests completed this week at the request of the Observer and the New York-based Innocence Project show the hair didn?t belong to Jones after all...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on November 12, 2010 (boomark / email).