Posted on 05/01/2006 5:06:16 PM PDT by KingofZion
A man serving a life sentence for a 1988 killing was freed Monday after charges were withdrawn because his DNA didn't match evidence from the killer's clothing.
Drew Whitley, 50, had been jailed since he was arrested soon after the shooting death of Noreen Malloy, 22, outside the restaurant she managed.
* * *
DNA test results released last week showed that DNA from hairs on the killer's hat did not match Whitley, and the office of Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. dropped the charges Monday.
The hat, a bloodstained coat and shoes were found outside the restaurant and a stocking mask was found nearby.
A witness identified Whitley based on the shape of his face and his walk. At his 1989 trial, a crime lab technician said 41 hairs found in the mask resembled Whitley's hair. DNA testing was not available at the time.
Two of the 41 hairs were damaged in a testing attempt in the 1990s, and the other 39 were lost. They were found in July, and a judge ordered they be compared to Whitley's DNA. After the results came back in favor of the defense, prosecutors asked that hairs from the hat be tested.
Blood on the shoes matched Whitley's blood type, but the shoes were destroyed in a 1996 flood that wiped out much of the county police evidence room.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I don't understand what you're trying to say. Are you implying that there is a shortage of lawyers?
There's probably a shortage of criminal defense lawyers. Plenty of other ones.
1. Get paid in advance.
2. The client goes to jail, not the lawyer (translation: don't do anything unethical for your client).
3. Get paid in advance.
Maybe he'd have been executed years ago if there weren't so many anti-death penalty lawyers around.
YEs, there are only so many knee jerk liberal lawyers to go around. What does this mean? They spend most of their time trying to free death row inmates who deserve to be executed and where there is NO question of guilt. It just jams up the systems and wastes 1000s of hours of court time including supreme court that could be spent more productively on civil cases, etc.
The result is that guys like this - who are actually innocent - are lucky to get attention from a competent attorney.
The best thing that we could do in this country would be to expedite the death penalty appeals process, thereby allowing court resources to be shifted to cases where at least there is a real question of guilt or innocence.
I would hope that when somebody is convicted,by 12 of his peers, that there is no doubt of his guilt. But obviously that is not true. There are so many ways that the system can go wrong.
This is one case where I feel like the "welfare" state should take care of things. This poor man should be given 10 million dollars, at the taxpayer's expense, and allowed to live his life as he sees fit. It's the least the system can do considering he had 28 years stolen from him. Can you imagine? I can't.
18 not 28. 2006-1988=18
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