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Ruh Roh: Posthumous DNA testing could exonerate already executed convict

From Matt Kelley at Change.org's Criminal Justice blog:Did Texas execute an innocent man 10 years ago? We may be about to find out. A state judge has granted a go-ahead for DNA testing on a strand of hair from the case of Claude Jones, who was executed in Texas in 2000 for allegedly shooting a liquor store clerk in (no joke) Point Blank, Texas. The hair was collected from the store counter, and a forensic analyst testified at Jones' trial that it "matched" his head hair ? a scientifically impossible finding. Based on this and the testimony of a snitch (who later recanted), Jones was convicted and sentenced to death. The Innocence Project, together with the Texas Observer and two Texas-based innocence organizations, filed motions in court seeking to preserve the hair so testing could move forward...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on June 16, 2010 (boomark / email).