The DNA non-redemption
Test results came too late to save Claude Jones from Texas' death chamber
EDITORIAL
Los Angeles Times
November 27, 2010
In 1990, a Texas jury convicted Claude Jones, a career criminal, of murdering Allen Hilzendager.
Jones and another ex-convict, Danny Dixon, had stopped their truck at Hilzendager's liquor store in Point Blank, Texas. One of the men got out, entered the store and shot Hilzendager. Jones blamed Dixon and Dixon blamed Jones, but Jones was eventually convicted of pulling the trigger on the basis of one person's testimony (subsequently recanted) and on one piece of physical evidence: a strand of hair found inside the store and identified as Jones' by a crime lab expert.
That hair tipped the balance between life and death, because Texas law requires corroborating physical evidence in a capital case. Dixon is serving a life sentence; Jones was put to death in 2000.
This month, however, a DNA test determined that the hair did not belong to Jones after all; it belonged to the victim. With no physical evidence, there is now no legal basis for Jones' death sentence.
Some may argue that this miscarriage of justice was an aberration. But Texas' rapid pace of executions, coupled with its abysmal standards for effective representation for defendants, have long made the likelihood of wrongful executions exceedingly high. The state offers a prime example of why the death penalty, which requires 100% accuracy, is so difficult to mete out fairly.
In fact, the judicial apparatus intentionally blocked DNA testing on the hair. The prosecutor in the case sought to have it destroyed before it could be tested, and the district court and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Jones' petitions for a DNA test and a stay of execution.
Texas is not alone in seeking to deny convicts the ability to prove their innocence. Despite more than 200 post-conviction exonerations based on DNA evidence, officials across the country still routinely try to stop it from being used. Forty-seven states permit convicted criminals to seek DNA testing — Alaska, Massachusetts and Oklahoma shamefully do not — but even in those states it is not readily available, according to the New York-based Innocence Project. Some states bar convicts who have confessed from post-conviction testing; others place time limits on requests. Alabama and Kentucky allow testing only for death row inmates.
The best way to ensure a just outcome to a case is to broaden access to DNA testing, not restrict it. And in light of Jones' wrongful execution, the states, starting with Texas, should make a commitment to using cutting-edge scientific methods to their fullest. It's true, as some argue, that the DNA test did not exonerate Jones. But it did indict Texas' judicial system.
