Prosecutors in New Jersey announced that they were drop­ping all charges against Larry Peterson who had been con­vict­ed of mur­der in 1989, say­ing they could no longer meet their bur­den of proof in his case. Peterson’s con­vic­tion was over­turned last year after DNA tests failed to match him with evi­dence from the scene of the crime. The state had ini­tial­ly sought the death penal­ty against Peterson, who is now 55 after spend­ing 18 years in prison. The Innocence Project at Cardozo Law School in New York and state pros­e­cu­tors had dozens of DNA sam­ples from hairs and else­where at the crime scene test­ed in the case. None matched Peterson’s genet­ic make­up. New Jersey cur­rent­ly has a mora­to­ri­um on car­ry­ing out the death penal­ty while a com­mis­sion stud­ies the process. 

(Associated Press, May 26, 2006).

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