Comment in CLE I will be attending on Actual Innocence -"The question is no longer whther our systeme sometimes convicts the innocent and fails to identify the guilty, DNA had removed that question forever." Okay my question is two fold - I can think of many scenarios that DNA will not be the end all answer to the question of guilt. I wonder how everyone else feels?

Second - I have had two cases one asking about DNA on appeal, and the second questioning the denial of DNA testing. How does DNA help when the defendant takes the stand and admits to stabbing the victim? See Luvano v. State, 183 SW3d 918 (11COA,2006) and Rhynes v. State, No. 11-03-00391-CR (11COA, Nov 3, 2005). Does anyone else have good examples of Def asking for DNA testing like this - anything more outrageous than these?

Since this is to be a Judge. pros, def forum I would like examples of how DNA is not necessarily the "answer" to all guilt/innocence questions.

Well, we could all closely follow the Duke rape case. The famous line from that one is where the experts allege that the lady can be taken into a bathroom, gang-raped against her will, and it is consistent with guilt that no DNA is found anywhere on her, or in the bathroom.

I just do not believe that the 12 Monday Night 'CSI Watching' Quarterbacks are going to see it that way.

The case law on Chapter 64 has generally recognized that DNA is meaningless on the issue of identity of the offender, when the offender is diddling his stepdaughter, date-raping his across the hall neighbor, or claimed self defense at trial.

Some cases are harder, especially big homicides where they want to argue alternative perpetrators, etc.

Maybe they will study this case of claimed actual innocence!

Inmate says he wasn't there when Byrd was killed
His former co-defendant says another man had a role in '98 Jasper dragging death


By LISA SANDBERG
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau

AUSTIN � More than seven years after being sentenced to die for James Byrd Jr.'s 1998 dragging death, John William King is now claiming that he wasn't at the murder scene.

While King's former prosecutor scoffs at the notion the state got the wrong man, King's former co-defendant, Lawrence Russell Brewer, backs up King's latest death row appeal.

In a 51-page typewritten account of the night Byrd was chained to the back of a pickup and dragged to his death along a rural East Texas road, Brewer argues that another man, not King, took part in the murder, and King remained behind in the Jasper apartment King shared with Brewer, also on death row, and a third co-defendant, Shawn Berry.

Berry received a life term for Byrd's death.

The man accused by Brewer of taking part in the murder was never charged.

Byrd's brutal killing by three whites horrified the nation and reminded many of race-inspired lynchings.

King's appellate attorney, Allen Richard Ellis, who included Brewer's detailed statement in the appeal filed in June, called his client's 1999 trial "a farce" carried out amid such an outpouring of anger that key evidence was overlooked.

"Basically, it was 'hang 'em high, we've got to come to grips with our racism,' " Ellis said.

Guy James Gray, the former Jasper County district attorney who tried all three defendants, dismissed King's latest appeal as "frivolous."

The forensic evidence against King, which included Byrd's blood on sandals owned by King, was irrefutable, Gray said. Ellis disputed that King owned the sandals.

Neither of King's trial attorneys could be reached Wednesday for comment. Gray said the defense lawyers did not offer any proof that King was not at the scene.

King's chances on appeal are probably slim, and the years-old letters he wrote to Brewer and members of the news media may be his biggest obstacle.

In a letter to the Dallas Morning News, he admitted riding in the truck with Brewer and Berry when they offered Byrd a ride, the Associated Press reported.

But in a letter to Brewer, King, a self-proclaimed white supremacist, leaves the impression he took part in Byrd's killing.

"As far as the clothes I had on, I don't think any blood was on my pants or sweatshirt, but I think my sandals may have had some dark brown substance on the bottom of them," he wrote, according to the AP.

Billy Rowles, the now-retired sheriff of Jasper County who arrested Byrd's killers, called King the trio's ringleader, and said the inmate deserved to die.

"I'm going to be there when he's executed," Rowles said from Jasper.

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Originally posted by rob kepple:
Maybe they will study this case of claimed actual innocence!

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Now Rob, you know better than that, don't you? The truth is always an obstacle to claims of "actual innocence". The blood on his sandals and his literary efforts are the truth. And a wise man once said the truth will set you free. In this case, the truth does not give King freedom, but instead, sets him free from his denial. Whether he wants to admit the truth or not.

As an aside, wasn't King the big, bad Aryan brotherhood member with all the tattoos to prove it? I thought he was proud of his handiwork?