Texas Death Row Inmate May Be Exonerated As Prosecution Recommends Overturning Conviction

Based on state­ments from the District Attorney’s office, it appears that Texas wrong­ly con­vict­ed Michael Blair and sen­tenced him to death in 1994 for the sex­u­al assault and mur­der of 7‑year-old Ashley Estell. The case led to the pas­sage of ​“Ashley’s Laws” to increase pun­ish­ments for such offens­es. Collin County District Attorney John Roach announced that new DNA tests show no phys­i­cal evi­dence link­ing Blair to the crime. The only foren­sic evi­dence that point­ed to Blair for the kid­nap-mur­der was hair evi­dence; new DNA evi­dence has shown that the hair belonged to anoth­er per­son. D.A. Roach said, ​“There is no good faith argu­ment to sup­port the cur­rent con­vic­tion in light of the facts and the law as they now exist.”

Blair has always main­tained his inno­cence in this case and Roach announced that they have anoth­er ​“per­son of inter­est” in the case. That man, who showed sus­pi­cious behav­ior after the mur­der, has since died. The D.A.‘s office had assem­bled a team of experts in November 2006 that spent more than $47,000 and 5,000 hours on the case. Experts do not expect a new tri­al, which was approved by the judge pre­sid­ing over the defense’s motion to over­turn the con­vic­tion. Regardless of the out­come of this case, Blair will remain incar­cer­at­ed for life for oth­er crimes he con­fessed to in 2004. This case now returns to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for fur­ther review based on the low­er court’s con­clu­sions.
(A. Estell, ​“Collin County dis­trict attorny says evi­dence does­n’t link Blair to ​’93 killing of Ashley Estell,”, Dallas Morning News, May 24, 2008). See Innocence. DPIC adds cas­es to its Innocence List once a death row inmate’s con­vic­tion is over­turned AND the state indi­cates it is drop­ping charges. DPIC does not make its own sub­jec­tive judg­ment about the facts of the case nor does it require inno­cence of un-relat­ed crimes for inclu­sion on the list. One hun­dred and twen­ty-nine (129) inmates have been exon­er­at­ed and freed from death row since 1973.