Senator vows to expand DNA testing in innocence claims

Arguing that the states highest criminal court watered down a law designed to free innocent people from prison, a state senator vowed Wednesday to introduce, and pass, legislation allowing for expanded DNA testing of crime-scene evidence.

Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, said a February ruling by the Court of Criminal Appeals interpreted the 2011 law too narrowly, making it difficult for folks to secure DNA testing that can prove their innocence and identify actual perpetrators.

This decision, respectfully, is out of touch with tremendous advances in science that weve made in regard to DNA testing, he said.

In its February ruling, the appeals court unanimously denied DNA testing for death row inmate Larry Swearingen, ruling that his lawyers had not established that there was biological material on several items Swearingen wanted to test, including pantyhose used to strangle the victim, Conroe college student Melissa Trotter.

The ruling leaves inmates in a catch-22 unable to get DNA testing unless they can prove the existence of biological material that cannot be revealed without testing, said Michael Morton, who was exonerated by DNA evidence in 2011 after 25 years in prison.

It is an impossible bar to meet, said Morton, who joined Ellis at a Capitol news conference Wednesday.

Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project of New York and one of Mortons lawyers, said modern tests can identify DNA from skin cells and sweat transferred onto items of clothing, including the pantyhose from the Swearingen case.

Knowing who touched a murder weapon would be an important, critical clue in a criminal case, particularly post-conviction if you want to prove somebody innocent. But just by looking I cant tell whether theres enough biological material here to get the result one would need from the DNA test until I actually test it.

Similar tests on a bandana led to Mortons exoneration and identified Mark Alan Norwood, who has since been convicted in the 1986 murder of Mortons wife, Christine, in their Williamson County home.

In 2011, the Legislature overwhelmingly approved an Ellis measure to allow inmates to seek DNA testing on evidence that could potentially establish their innocence, as long as the evidence had not yet been tested or was subjected to less-reliable, now-obsolete testing.

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Senator vows to expand DNA testing in innocence claims