Chris_Halkides
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2009
- Messages
- 12,561
"A Missouri judge held an evidentiary hearing Wednesday over the innocence claim of death row inmate Marcellus Williams, whose quest to prove he did not murder a woman in 1998 has been complicated by contaminated DNA evidence." CNN From what I can gather, there was none of Mr. Williams' DNA on the knife. However, the prosecutor (and others?) handled the knife without gloves.
"Bailey’s office has also suggested that other evidence points to Williams’s guilt, including testimony from a man who shared a cell with Williams and said he confessed, and testimony from a girlfriend who claimed she saw stolen items in Williams’s car. Williams’s attorneys, however, contended that both of those witnesses were not reliable, saying they had been convicted of felonies and were motivated to testify by a $10,000 reward offer." Guardian. USA Today wrote, "Williams' attorneys have argued that both informants stood to benefit from their cooperation with prosecutors, and that their stories sometimes changed or conflicted with other details about the killing. Both witnesses have since died." Jailhouse informants are not highly regarded as sources of information.
Michael Cohen wrote, "There is no physical or forensic evidence linking Williams to the crime scene. Fingerprints taken at the crime scene were inexplicably destroyed. Neither bloodied footprints nor hair at the crime scene could be linked to to Williams." MSNBC. USA Today wrote, "Among the evidence police collected: bloody shoeprints and fingerprints, a knife sheath and the suspect's hair collected from Gayle's shirt, hands and the floor." I cannot possibly think of a good reason to destroy fingermark evidence. Microscopic examination of hair followed by mitochondrial DNA testing is highly probative.
His execution is set for tonight.
EDT
The Innocence Project summed up the testimony of the two witnesses: "Both of these individuals were known fabricators; neither revealed any information that was not either included in media accounts about the case or already known to the police. Their statements were inconsistent with their own prior statements, with each other’s accounts, and with the crime scene evidence, and none of the information they provided could be independently verified."
"Bailey’s office has also suggested that other evidence points to Williams’s guilt, including testimony from a man who shared a cell with Williams and said he confessed, and testimony from a girlfriend who claimed she saw stolen items in Williams’s car. Williams’s attorneys, however, contended that both of those witnesses were not reliable, saying they had been convicted of felonies and were motivated to testify by a $10,000 reward offer." Guardian. USA Today wrote, "Williams' attorneys have argued that both informants stood to benefit from their cooperation with prosecutors, and that their stories sometimes changed or conflicted with other details about the killing. Both witnesses have since died." Jailhouse informants are not highly regarded as sources of information.
Michael Cohen wrote, "There is no physical or forensic evidence linking Williams to the crime scene. Fingerprints taken at the crime scene were inexplicably destroyed. Neither bloodied footprints nor hair at the crime scene could be linked to to Williams." MSNBC. USA Today wrote, "Among the evidence police collected: bloody shoeprints and fingerprints, a knife sheath and the suspect's hair collected from Gayle's shirt, hands and the floor." I cannot possibly think of a good reason to destroy fingermark evidence. Microscopic examination of hair followed by mitochondrial DNA testing is highly probative.
His execution is set for tonight.
EDT
The Innocence Project summed up the testimony of the two witnesses: "Both of these individuals were known fabricators; neither revealed any information that was not either included in media accounts about the case or already known to the police. Their statements were inconsistent with their own prior statements, with each other’s accounts, and with the crime scene evidence, and none of the information they provided could be independently verified."
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