Michael Blair Wrongfully Imprisoned For 14 Years

[wheezer]

A Texas judge this morning approved a request by Collin County prosecutors to dismiss charges against former death row inmate Michael Blair due to mounting evidence - including DNA test results - pointing to his innocence of a 1994 child murder. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled in June that Blair’s conviction in the case should be vacated, and today’s decision to dismiss charges makes his exoneration official. He will not be released, however, because he is serving three life sentences for unrelated sexual assault convictions.

At Blair’s trial in 1994, prosecutors presented several pieces of hair and fiber evidence against him; a state expert said that hairs from the crime scene matched Blair’s and hairs from Blair’s car could have belonged to the seven-year-old victim. DNA testing conducted since trial at Blair’s request have discredited the microscopic hair testimony and no link between Blair and the victim or crime scene has been discovered. The first tests to exclude Blair were finished in 2002. Additionally, DNA evidence indicates that another man, now deceased, may have committed this crime.

Blair is the 219th person exonerated nationwide by DNA evidence and the 17th who served time on death row. He is the 33nd DNA exoneree in Texas, which has more wrongful convictions overturned by DNA testing than any other state.

http://innocenceprojectbournemouth.com/innocence-project-usa/charges-dismissed-in-texas-death-row-case/

[packy]

And to think he was on death row. Thanks for sharing these cases, Wheezer.

[London Lass]

Texas exonerates death row inmate after DNA tests


A man on death row in Texas for 14 years for the murder of a young girl has been exonerated after DNA tests, the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) reported.

Michael Blair, sentenced to death for the 1993 killing of 7-year-old Ashley Estell, had his capital murder charges dismissed in late August by the Collin County court after hair used as evidence to convict him, was shown to belong to somebody else.

"The Plano police department is now reinvestigating the 15-year-old case to find the true killer," the center said in a statement.

"The DNA evidence that cleared Blair indicates that another man, now deceased, is a plausible suspect in the girl's death."

Blair, who remains in prison for convictions in other crimes, is the 4th person to be exonerated from death row in 2008, and brings the total number of death row exonerations to 130 since 1973, according to an "innocence list" compiled by the DPIC.

http://people.smu.edu/rhalperi/updates.html
source: Agence France Presse