much incentive to overturn his conviction. we didn t hear anything for month after month. 14 months went by. and then i get an e-mail in my inbox. heart stops. i start hyperventilating. i clicked on it, and the opinion is 190-something pages long. and where is the good part? the most conservative appellate court in the nation had ruled 2-1 that elmore deserved a new trial. everyone in the death penalty community, what happened? we don t win like that, and not there. but we did. the state was reluctant to retry the case, knowing the evidence the defense had unearthed could implicate both police and prosecutors. so they offered elmore a plea bargain. and the prosecutor asked is there anything short of outright dismissal of all charges that we can do to settle this matter?
nearly 25 years later. i was like, you know what? you opened the door. i m walking through it. let s do this. i m going to tell it all. not just the part you want to hear. but the judge in the case, visibly disgusted by zelenka s tactic, disallowed the deposition. diana could continue her fight for elmore s life. at elmore s trial, prosecutor willie t. had claimed that negroid hair had been found on the body. when the petition had asked to see the hair it had gone missing. now 16 years later, the hair suddenly turned up. the prosecution has an obligation to turn over to the defense anything which is favorable. in this case, they didn t do it at the time of trial. as it turns out, none of the hairs were negroid at all. they were all caucasian hair, and they did not belong to mr. elmore. and that should be sufficient to warrant a new trial.
victim s blood. prosecutors also told the jury that dozens of elmore s pubic hairs were found on dorothy s bed. and finally, prosecutors presented james gilliam, a prison inmate who claimed to hear elmore confess while he was in jail. that came out of nowhere. that just rocked me. mr. rockmore told gilliam that i went down there and robbed that lady, and she started screaming and i killed her. that was the lynchpin. the jury took less than five hours to reach a verdict. elmore was convicted and sentenced to death. but the conviction was overturned on appeal. there was one juror who was reluctant to impose the death penalty. and the trial judge went into the jury room and put pressure on the holdout juror to impose the death sentence. a new trial was ordered. same prosecutor, same defense
he was tested. and the state department of special needs finds that edward lee elmore is mentally retarded. elmore s death sentence was commuted to life in prison. after nearly 28 years, elmore was finally leaving death row. [ screaming ] sorry, that s exactly what i did. i get mr. elmore on the phone. i say hey, you re going to be leaving death row. i m not going to die? no, well, not there. elmore s life had been spared. but diana hadn t fought for years to see elmore die behind bars. her team had one last hope to get him a new trial. the u.s. 4th circuit court of appeals would be the highest court ever to hear elmore s case. the 4th circuit has the reputation of being the most
and i said in fact there is. he goes free at the bond hearing, and he is going to continue to say the truth he said all of these years, i m innocent. and the prosecutor said okay. but the plea required that elmore say in open court that the state could likely prove their charges against him at a trial. it wasn t the exoneration they were hoping for, but it would mean freedom. new tonight, he was once on death row. now he is a free man. after 30 years, edward elmore was released from prison today. oh, thank the lord. give me a minute. i m a little overwhelmed right now. just so excited, i couldn t hardly speak. locked up all them years something i didn t do, and comes along, she believed in me.