DNA testing clears woman after 35 years in Nevada prison (+video)

Reno, Nev. After the case was dropped against a Nevada woman who spent 35 years in prison for a 1976 murder she did not commit, both sides agreed on one point: justice was finally served thanks to new technology in DNA testing.

Cathy Woods became the latest innocent person in the country to be cleared by DNA evidence after prosecutors announced Friday there will be no retrial of her in the fatal stabbing of 19-year-old Michelle Mitchell on the edge of the University of Nevada, Reno, campus.

A judge tossed Woods' conviction in September after new DNA tests linked the Reno crime to an Oregon inmate who now faces charges near San Francisco in a string of killings about the same time.

Washoe County District Attorney Chris Hicks said he didn't fault earlier police, prosecutors and juries for sending Woods to prison because they didn't have "the incredible tool of DNA."

"Whenever we hear about these rare cases where convicted individuals are later exonerated by DNA, it is a circumstance that upsets our society, rightly so," Hicks said at a news conference. "It is also depicted as a strike against our modern day criminal justice system. I would suggest otherwise.

"These exonerations, 30 and 40 years later, show how improved our criminal justice system has become. So as tragic and difficult as this case continues to be, the one shining light is that it shows our modern day system is working," he added.

Woods' public defender, Maizie Pusich, agreed, saying earlier authorities and juries simply lacked DNA evidence.

"I wish it (Woods' exoneration) happened a long time ago, but at least it happened now when she's in relatively good health," Pusich told The Associated Press. "As time goes by, there will be innocent people in prison who slip through the cracks because they won't survive much longer."

Woods, 64, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. She lives in the Southern California home of her brother and his wife, both of whom care for her. She remains under mental health treatment and is "doing well," Pusich said.

She was convicted in 1980 and again five years later. The convictions were based largely on the confession she made in 1979 at a psychiatric hospital in Shreveport, Louisiana, where her mother committed her months earlier.

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DNA testing clears woman after 35 years in Nevada prison (+video)