AP reports, "DNA test may cast doubt on executed Texan's guilt," via Google News. It's written by Jeff Carlton. For those unfamiliar with the case, it's an excellent recap.
Claude Jones may have been wrongly executed for the 1989 slaying of a liquor store owner in this aptly named Texas town, but no one says he's an angel.
He was a lifelong criminal, with a rap sheet that included a murder conviction for setting fire to a fellow inmate in a Kansas prison. Two eyewitnesses and his accomplices placed him at the liquor store. And even one of Jones' attorneys says the defense had "a devil of a time finding a good character witness."
But there are new questions 10 years after Jones was executed about whether he actually killed 44-year-old Allen Hilzendager while robbing the store, and whether the testimony used to convict him was enough. A judge has ordered DNA testing on a strand of hair that prosecutors used to link Jones to the murder.
It's the second time in a year the guilt of an executed Texas inmate is in doubt. A fire expert last year said the investigation of the fire that killed Cameron Todd Willingham's three daughters was so flawed that the arson finding can't be supported. Willingham was executed in 2004. Last month, a state panel concluded that arson investigators were not negligent.
"He was no poster boy, Claude," said Jerald Crow, Jones' trial attorney. "But that doesn't matter. The law is the law, and they need to follow it."
Under Texas law, a defendant can't be convicted on accomplice testimony without corroborating evidence. The hair collected from the liquor store was the key evidence supporting the testimony of an accomplice who implicated Jones.
A DNA test that shows the hair came from someone else wouldn't exonerate Jones. But it could show the state didn't have enough to convict or execute Jones, who was put to death in 2000 at age 60.
And:
But up to his death, he denied being the triggerman to his lawyer and his son. Duane Jones of Houston said his father freely confessed to all of his past crimes. Just not this one.
The hair is being tested because Duane Jones — along with the Innocence Project, other innocence groups and The Texas Observer magazine — sought temporary restraining orders preventing its destruction.
"If you are going to be the execution capital of the free world, then you should take every opportunity available to make sure the system is above reproach," Duane Jones said.
Earlier coverage begins with this post.
Comments