Arkansas Prisoners, Asserting Their Innocence, File Requests for DNA Testing

Two Arkansas death-row pris­on­ers who are sched­uled be exe­cut­ed on April 20 have asked the Arkansas courts to stay their exe­cu­tions to per­mit DNA test­ing in their cas­es. Stacey Johnson (pic­tured, l.) and Ledell Lee (pic­tured, r.) both say they did not com­mit the crimes for which they were sen­tenced to death, and both say that DNA test­ing meth­ods not avail­able at the time of their tri­als could prove their innocence. 

Stacey Johnson was con­vict­ed of the 1993 rape and mur­der of Carol Jean Heath. His con­vic­tion rest­ed large­ly on tes­ti­mo­ny from the vic­tim’s 6‑year-old daugh­ter, but records obtained by the defense after the tri­al indi­cate that the girl told her ther­a­pist that she had not seen any­thing and was being pres­sured by her fam­i­ly to iden­ti­fy Johnson. Technology avail­able at the time of Johnson’s tri­al was not sen­si­tive enough to pro­vide DNA results from the sex­u­al assault evi­dence col­lect­ed from the vic­tim’s body, but new­er meth­ods may be able to rule out Johnson and even pro­vide a match to an alternative suspect. 

At the tri­al, it was revealed that the vic­tim’s boyfriend had abused his for­mer wife for four years, requir­ing her to obtain emer­gency cus­tody of her chil­dren. It was also revealed that his abuse of his ex-wife includ­ed bit­ing her breasts. Significantly, bite marks were iden­ti­fied on the victim’s breasts in Johnson’s case. 

Bryce Benjet of the Innocence Project, which filed Johnson’s request, said, ​“This is not some sort of last-minute, hail mary pass. Johnson asked for DNA test­ing in ear­li­er appeals, but those requests were denied by State and fed­er­al courts. There have been rev­o­lu­tion­ary advance­ments in DNA test­ing since this case was ini­tial­ly inves­ti­gat­ed which could tell once and for all who actu­al­ly com­mit­ted this crime.” 

In a sep­a­rate fil­ing, Ledell Lee sought new DNA test­ing of hair and blood evi­dence, nei­ther of which pro­vid­ed con­clu­sive results using 1995 tech­niques. Despite a bloody crime scene, no phys­i­cal evi­dence direct­ly impli­cat­ed Lee in the mur­der. No fin­ger­print evi­dence from the scene matched Lee and no DNA evi­dence was pre­sent­ed to the jury. A state’s expert wit­ness, how­ev­er, tes­ti­fied at tri­al that he had found ​“Negroid head hair” at the scene and the state said there were small spots of blood on Lee’s shoes. 

Lee’s lawyers argue that ​“pro­ba­tive bio­log­i­cal evi­dence cur­rent­ly in the cus­to­di­an con­trol of the state may now be able to pro­vide — through the use of mod­ern, cut­ting edge DNA test­ing tech­nol­o­gy — con­fir­ma­tion of the verac­i­ty of Mr. Lee’s inno­cence claim.” Both defen­dants’ requests have been denied by coun­ty judges, and have been appealed to the Arkansas Supreme Court. 

[UPDATE: The Arkansas Supreme Court issued a stay of exe­cu­tion for Stacey Johnson on the DNA issue, but denied Ledell Lee’s motion for a stay. Arkansas exe­cut­ed Lee on April 20.]