THE OOPS YOU DON’T WANT
New Evidence Suggests Executed Killer was Innocent Four years after an Arkansas man was executed for murdering someone, new evidence suggests the crime was committed by someone else. Ledell Lee, who was executed in April 2017, insisted he was innocent until his life ended. At the time, defense attorneys tried to get prosecutors to test new DNA evidence that had surfaced, but a judge denied the request, according to officials with the Innocence Project. Now the Innocence Project and the ACLU have released the results of the test, which was recently performed — and it reveals the DNA found on the murder weapon belonged to another man, the organizations reveal. “While this phase of the litigation and court-ordered DNA testing is now concluded, the investigation into the case remains open due to the possibility of a future database ‘hit’ to the unknown male DNA or unknown fingerprints from the crime scene,” says Nina Morrison, senior litigation counsel with the Innocence Project. Is this story a good argument for ending executions?
Should the judge who denied the DNA test face some kind of criminal charge?
