According to Andrew Cohen of the Atlantic, “the specters of racial bias, a faulty confession and untested scientific evidence have haunted this case.”
Willie Jerome Manning, a convicted murderer on Mississippi’s death row has been denied a DNA test that, according to the New York Times, “could save him from the execution chamber.” The Mississippi Supreme Court however, ruled in a 5-4 decision that there was “conclusive, overwhelming evidence of guilty” and that no matter what the results of the DNA tests they would not sere to “preclude his participation in the crimes.”
In a blog on the Huffington Post, Georgetown University Law Center’s Dov Fox explained that “no physical evidence has ever linked Manning to the crime.” He explains that the jury convicted Manning “based largely on the testimony of a cousin of the defendant and a jailhouse informant” who initially claimed Manning admitted to committing the murders, but has since recanted his testimony in full. Dov also points out that “”The cousin had accused two other men before Manning.”
According to the Washington Post, the Justice Department has recently “acknowledged flaws in forensic testimony by the FBI that helped convict a man in the 1992 slayings of two Mississippi State University students,” and both the Justice Department and the FBI have “offered to retest the DNA in the case.” The evidence in question consists of a rape kit, fingernail scrapings, hairs and fingerprints. None of which has ever been matched to Manning.
Justice James W. Kitchens argued in his dissenting opinion that “whatever potential harm the denial seeks to avert is surely outweighed by the benefits of ensuring justice by the scientific analysis of all the trace evidence.”
Manning’s defense team has now appealed to Gov. Phil Bryant for a stay in the execution that is scheduled for Tuesday, but as of Friday his spokesman could only say that the Governor was “reviewing the facts of the case.”
Photo: Mississippi Department of Corrections
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/08/us/willie-j-manning-granted-stay-of-execution.html?src=recg
With Hours Left to Go, Execution Is Postponed
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON