The Innocence Project is holding a news conference this morning. I'll post coverage as soon as it becomes available. The Innocence Project has also posted this timeline of the case.
If you haven't already read Dave Mann's exclusive "DNA Tests Undermine Evidence in Texas Execution: New results show Claude Jones was put to death on flawed evidence," you'll want to.
The latest version of the AP report by Jeff Carlton is, "Test finds hair in murder case doesn't match," via the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
When career criminal Claude Jones was condemned after a robbery and slaying in 1989 at a San Jacinto County liquor store, a single hair was the only physical evidence linking him to the crime scene.
In the weeks before his execution on Dec. 7, 2000, his appellate attorneys asked for a reprieve to get DNA testing of the hair. But then-Gov. George W. Bush's staff didn't pass the request along to Bush, who was in the midst of a historic presidential ballot-counting dispute.
On Thursday, the Innocence Project and The Texas Observer magazine announced the results of recent DNA tests on the hair: It did not belong to Jones.
Barry Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project, said the analysis doesn't prove that an innocent man was executed. But, he said, it means the prosecution's evidence was not sufficient for a conviction under Texas law.
"There was not enough evidence to convict, and he shouldn't have been executed," Scheck said.
Jones' execution date arrived in the closing weeks of Bush's term as governor and as the nation focused on the recount of Florida ballots, which ended with Bush being elected president.
Jones' lawyers pressed Bush's office for permission to do a DNA test on the hair. But the briefing papers that his staff passed on to Bush didn't include that request, and Bush denied Jones a reprieve, according to documents obtained by the Innocence Project.
Scheck said he believes "to a moral certainty" that Bush would have granted a 30-day stay had he known.
"It is absolutely outrageous that no one told him that Claude Jones was asking for a DNA test," Scheck said. "If you can't rely on the governor's staff to inform him, something is really wrong with the system."
Today's Houston Chronicle carries, "Hair casts doubt on executed man's guilt," reported by Allan Turner, Cindy Horswell, and Mike Tolson.
A strand of light-colored hair prosecutors insisted linked career criminal Claude Jones to the robbery-murder of a San Jacinto County liquor store owner likely came from the victim, not from the accused killer, DNA testing revealed on Thursday.
The new DNA testing came one decade after Jones' lawyer filed an unsuccessful execution-eve plea to then-Gov. George Bush to grant a 30-day stay so that such high-tech testing could be performed.
Jones, 60, was executed on Dec. 7, 2000, for the November 1989 murder of Allen Hilzendager during the stickup of a Point Blank package store.
Jones consistently maintained that he was innocent of the crime.
The tests do not offer conclusive proof of Jones' innocence, but raise questions about his conviction, which was largely based on the hair fragment, the only physical evidence against him.
Thursday's announcement came as vindication to Jones' son, Houston associate engineer Duane Jones, 50, who was reunited with his father only after the elder man found himself on death row.
"I was 98 percent sure of what he was telling me," Duane Jones said of the convicted killer's claim of innocence, "but now I believe him 100 percent. He was railroaded. He did not shoot that man. I think not only am I owed an apology, but so is everybody in the whole state of Texas."
Bush's decision to reject Jones' plea for a 30-day reprieve the day before he was executed followed the recommendation of his staff counsel Claudia Nadig, whose confidential report to the governor made no mention of the condemned man's request for DNA testing, despite that being the reason a stay was sought by Jones' lawyers.
"Texas: DNA Test Disproves Evidence in Death-Penalty Case," is the title of Nathan Thornburgh's post at Time.
For over two decades, the hair was stored in a plastic evidence bag in the courthouse in Coldspring, Texas, cataloged as belonging to Claude Jones, who was convicted of murder in 1990 and executed 10 years later. Now, it can be relabeled: a court-ordered DNA test found Thursday that the hair actually belonged to the murder victim Allen Hilzendager. The result casts significant doubt on the validity of Jones' conviction and his execution.
That single 1-in. (2.5 cm) strand of hair was the key to Jones' original conviction. A truck carrying Jones and Danny Dixon did pull up in front of Hilzendager's liquor store that night. One man got out, went inside and gunned Hilzendager down, according to two eyewitnesses across the highway (neither could see the murderer's face). Both Jones and Dixon were certainly capable of the crime — both were on parole after serving time for murder. But there was little other firm evidence of which one had done it. Dixon accused Jones, and Jones accused Dixon. The prosecution's star witness against Jones was a friend of Dixon's who later said that prosecutors had coerced him into testifying.
And from the beginning, the evidence was handled questionably. The hair expert at the Texas crime lab originally thought the small sample was "unsuitable for comparison" using the microscopy technology available at the time, but eventually changed his mind and decided to test it after all. Using that outdated technology — which essentially has two hairs examined side by side under a microscope — the expert then determined that the hair belonged to Jones and not Dixon.
That dubious determination went on to haunt all of Jones' failed appeals as well. Time and again, lawyers and judges pointed to the physical evidence against Jones as a damning factor.
Except, in the end, it wasn't. The fact that the hair was actually Hilzendager's doesn't mean that Jones was necessarily innocent, but it does mean that the jury convicted him — and did so quickly — based largely on false evidence. "What's crucial to understand is that the hair was critical evidence in the case," says Barry Scheck, whose Innocence Project, along with the Texas Observer, led the lawsuit demanding that the hair be subjected to DNA testing. "I have no doubt the conviction would've been reversed with these results."
In May, Thornburgh wrote, "In Texas, Seeking the Truth About an Executed Man," for Time.
USA Today has, "DNA test casts doubt on guilt of Texas man executed after 2000 vote," by Michael Winter.
The DNA test on a single strand of hair — the only physical evidence linking Claude Jones to a deadly 1989 liquor store robbery — determined that it may have come from the victim, Allen Hilzendager, who was shot three times outside the town of Point Blank.
Jones, a career criminal, had asked Bush's office for a DNA test but Bush's staff did not include that request in briefing papers they gave him before he denied a reprieve, according to state documents obtained by the Innocence Project. Jones was executed Dec. 7, 2000.
A spokesman for Bush, who is on a book tour, did not immediately respond to AP's request for comment.
A Texas judge approved the DNA testing this past June.
"Doubt cast on executed man's guilt," is the UK Press Association report.
As the execution drew near, Jones was pressing the governor's office for permission for a DNA test on the hair. But the briefing papers Mr Bush was given by his staff did not include the testing request and Mr Bush denied a reprieve, according to state documents obtained by the Innocence Project.
Mr Scheck said he believed "to a moral certainty" that Mr Bush would have granted a 30-day reprieve had he known Jones was seeking DNA testing.
"It is absolutely outrageous that no-one told him that Claude Jones was asking for a DNA test," Mr Scheck said. "If you can't rely on the governor's staff to inform him, something is really wrong with the system."
Mr Bush had previously shown a willingness to test DNA evidence that could prove guilt or innocence in death penalty cases. Earlier in 2000, he had granted a reprieve to a death row inmate so Mr Scheck and other lawyers could have evidence tested. The test confirmed the man's guilt and he was executed.
Earlier coverage begins with, "Claude Jones' Other Shoe Drops," and is available throught the Claude Jones index.
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