Page 329 - Dna Testing News Today

And your team. i cant imagine the phone calls, the e-mails, the pleas from so many people to try to get individuals behind bars exonerated. why take his case? >> well, michaels was one of the first cases that we got. and actually, his trial lawyer, great guy named bill allison, who was a professor at the university of texas law school, tried his case. in 1989, he came to me and said, barry, there have been very few instances, in fact to him, it was the only one where he had taken a case to trial...

Prison right now when dna evidence could exonerate them. i want to bring in chris asplundh, former prosecutor, now a director with the alliance for rapid dna testing. thanks for being here. i know you followed this case closely. what do you make of the fact there was evidence, this bandanna with blood and hair that was never tested for dna? >> well, its certainly a tragedy. its a tragedy in a number of ways. its a tragedy not only for what happened to michaels life, but what happened to his sons...

New and its constant adjustment, constant recalibra tcht recalibration. >> you say you always knew you would get out. >> faith that i knew i was right, that i wasnt guilty and this would work out or just i didnt know how deep i was in. >> morton was exonerated in 2011 thanks to dna testing, testing that was not available back in 1987. and, yes, police have the real suspect in custody. its an amazing story. you can see the unreal dream tonight. the michael morton story on cnn 9:00 pm eastern. wel...

Smaller pieces of evidence. now that we can get dna profiles from evidence we cant even see, now the issue is how do we do it more quickly. now its reliability and speed, because when youre doing dna testing, how quickly you get to do that testing may literally save someones life. >> thank you so much. you can watch the story of michael morton tonight at 9:00 eastern on cnn. coming up, the republican speaker of the house sees a problem. too many of his male colleagues need coaching when it com...

Prosecutors do the right thing and they think theyve got it right, where witnesses all think theyve got the right person, where the other forensic evidence seems to point to that person and we still get it wrong. thats really the larger number by far, are the cases in which the system appears to work well and then just doesnt, because we dont look at the kind of evidence that we can look at now. >> give us an idea of what dna testing was like in 1987 when morton was convicted, compared to where ...

Biologists have been capturing bears -- >> okay, we got home. lets back off. >> reporter: fitting them with gps collars and microchips to better understand their movements which inevitably means at some point theyll cross paths with people. so how do they know if they catch a bear that they got the right one? wildlife officials say theyll do dna testing, they can match fibers, hair from the bear or blood from the woman on the bear. if they get the right one, it is more than just likely that it w...

Could have spent the better part of that 25 years on death row, and you did not but for the grace of god. >> absolutely. in fact, that was one the first things i commented on was i thanked god that mine wasnt a capital case. because had it been, i possibly would have been executed because of the length of time it took to turn all of this around. >> 25 years. and the average execution is now within about 20 years. >> its been sped up a bit in texas. >> and a couple of other states as well. john...

The technology and science. and while we havent had an opportunity to testify to this yet because what bensalem police department has done, this is a first of a kind program. theyre the first to really do this. so its perfectly validated and ready to go. >> so why you all i guess? here we think maybe a big police department somewhere, why tiny bep salem? >> a good question. weve been doing the dna testing since 2010. this was just the next step to us. and im willing to try anything new. anything...

Hundreds of thousands of dollars for dna testing of a hair found at the crime scene. and that has led to some startling revelations. >> the dna evidence proves that there were no sexual assaults. the forensics produced that, as well. the material that does exist, all three defendants are eliminated from it. they couldnt have produced it. and on the other hand, there is evidence consistent with a relative or a family member of one of the victims. and its a hair in one of the ligatures which ties ...

Death penalty case. prosecutors generally will not pursue the death penalty unless they feel the evidence of guilt is overwhelming, and i was stunned to find out that there was not, in my opinion, a single piece of credible evidence in a death case of this mans guilt. >> damien echols, jason baldwin and jessie misskelley, now known as the west memphis three, have all found supporters from all over the world, including celebrities, like actor johnny depp and rock musician eddie vedder. do you kno...