March 3

TEXAS:

New DNA tests on evidence used to convict Michael Blair in the 1993
abduction and murder of Ashley Estell show that it was not the death-row
inmate's hair that was found on the victim's body.

The victim's hair also wasn't found in Mr. Blair's car, according to a
lab report made public Friday by the Texas attorney general's office.

Mr. Blair's appellate attorneys say the DNA results virtually exonerate
their client; the Collin County district attorney says there is other
evidence to prove Mr. Blair's guilt.

"Obviously, my previous guarded optimism is much less guarded," said
Philip Wischkaemper of Lubbock, one of Mr. Blair's attorneys. "This is as
good as we could have hoped for under the circumstances. We're not saying
we've won this one yet, but we're a whole lot closer than we were before."

The Collin County district attorney's office referred questions Friday to
the attorney general's office. District Attorney Tom O'Connell has said
in previous interviews that even DNA results favorable to Mr. Blair
wouldn't change his mind about Mr. Blair's guilt in the slaying of the
7-year-old girl.

"I think there's other sufficient evidence," Mr. O'Connell told The
Associated Press earlier Friday. "I don't know that that would be the
deciding factor."

It is unknown what the latest test results will mean to Mr. Blair's
appeal or whether his conviction might be overturned.

Defense attorneys say the hair samples were the only association between
Mr. Blair, a previously convicted child molester, and Ashley. She was
abducted Sept. 4, 1993, from a crowded Plano soccer field. Her body was
discovered a day later beside an isolated road 6 miles from the field.

The case became the catalyst for "Ashley's Laws," a package of tough
sexual-predator measures in Texas requiring longer prison terms and
public registration for sex offenders.

At trial, forensic analyst Charles Linch testified and prosecutors
asserted that hairs found on a sheet used to move the child's body and in
the waistband of her underwear linked Mr. Blair to the girl. They also
said that hair microscopically similar to the girl's was found in Mr.
Blair's car.

New DNA technology not available at the time has proved otherwise.

"Michael Blair and Ashley Estell are excluded as contributors of these
questioned hairs," says the lab report made public Friday.

Jane Dees Shepperd, an attorney general's spokeswoman, said, "Recent DNA
testing confirmed that hairs found on the victim's body and hairs found
in Blair's vehicle do not belong to either Blair or the victim."

Records show that the hair samples and a fiber from a stuffed toy were
the only physical evidence in the case. Defense attorneys say the fiber
is inconclusive.

Mr. Blair, who has repeatedly proclaimed his innocence, was scheduled for
execution in July 1999, but the date was delayed when his attorneys moved
his appeal to federal court.

"I'll never be proud of my past, but I'll stand on the truth," Mr. Blair
wrote recently from death row. "I became falsely accused in Ashley
Estell's murder case. I did not kidnap or murder her."

A federal judge overseeing Mr. Blair's appeal ordered the DNA tests, and
Mitotyping Technologies of Pennsylvania conducted them. The lab performed
DNA tests on 2 previously untested hair fragments, and it retested a
strand of hair found on the floorboard of Mr. Blair's car. That strand
and another found in Mr. Blair's car had already been DNA-tested - and
excluded as belonging to Ashley - at a lab chosen by Mr. Blair's attorneys.

"I knew this was going to clear him," Roy Greenwood of Austin, Mr.
Blair's other attorney, said Friday. "Here's this expert [at trial] who
says all this hair from his car is hers. Our tests 2 years ago said he's
wrong. Our tests a year ago said he was doubly wrong. Now this test says
that our testing was correct. Their tests also have taken his alleged
hair off her body. We knew where this was going."

In August, The Dallas Morning News interviewed 5 jurors from Mr. Blair's
case. Each panel member said testimony about hair microscopically similar
to Mr. Blair's and found on Ashley's body was most meaningful to them.
They said that hair was the most compelling proof against him, although
they noted that they considered other factors, such as Mr. Blair's
decision to search for the child, in determining his guilt.

Mr. Wischkaemper has said that if the DNA tests throw out the hair
evidence, prosecutors are left with only "tainted witness
identifications" that Mr. Blair was in the park that day. No one saw him
with the girl, transcripts show.

Mr. O'Connell has said that he would retry Mr. Blair's case if it were
overturned; Mr. Wischkaemper says he doesn't know how that could be.

While the DNA results pleased the appellate attorneys, it also left them
with some decisions to make. On Friday, the attorney general's office
filed a motion with the Midland federal court overseeing Mr. Blair's
appeal. The motion asks that Mr. Blair's case be returned to the trial
court in Collin County to consider the new DNA evidence.

"This new evidence necessitated the [attorney general's] request to
return the case to the Texas courts for further review," Ms. Shepperd
said. "Federal habeas corpus law requires that any new evidence in a case
be considered 1st by the state courts before it can properly be
considered by the federal courts."

The trial court could either forward the case immediately to the Texas
Court of Criminal Appeals for review, or it could hold evidentiary hearings.

Mr. Blair's attorneys say they aren't sure whether they will agree to
move the case back to state court. Doing so, they say, could leave them
with few federal avenues for further appeal. They plan to work over the
weekend doing research before they make a decision, Mr. Greenwood said.

Legislators are considering a bill in which the wrongly convicted would
have a new, expedited path into court if DNA evidence could prove their
innocence. The bill was introduced after 34-year-old Christopher Ochoa
was released in Austin after serving 12 years in the rape and murder of a
Pizza Hut employee.

The DNA bill would give inmates convicted of a crime the opportunity to
ask a trial court to test biological evidence. No such legal mechanism
exists now.

The most recent prisoner to be freed due to new DNA evidence was David
Shawn Pope, who had spent nearly 15 years in prison. Gov. Rick Perry
pardoned him Feb. 2 after DNA testing proved that he didn't commit the
rape for which he'd been convicted in 1986.

(source: Dallas Morning News)

ILLINOIS:

The murder trial of Dale W. Lash likely will be heard in Peoria by a
Peoria County jury, a Sangamon County judge ruled Friday.

Associate Circuit Judge George Ray allowed a defense motion to change the
location of the trial for the rape and murder of 25-year-old Lori Hayes
of Auburn on Aug. 1, 1999. The motion contends that extensive news
coverage of Lash's conviction in February for the rape of a Springfield
real estate agent makes it impossible to select a fair and impartial jury
here.

Prosecutors did not object to the request filed by Sangamon County public
defender Brian Otwell and co-counsel Jay Elmore on behalf of Lash, 38, of
rural Loami.

"I believe it is unlikely he'll be able to obtain a jury of his peers in
Sangamon County," said State's Attorney John Schmidt, who last month
announced his intention to seek the death penalty if Lash is convicted.
"It's my job to ensure the defendant gets a fair trial, and this will
ensure such."

He said Seventh Circuit Court administrator Gary Dodge is making a
request of Peoria County that the trial be held there. Lash's trial
currently is set for March 26, but no one expects it to begin then. Late
summer, probably August, is a more likely possibility.

Lash is charged with first-degree murder, aggravated criminal sexual
assault, aggravated vehicular hijacking and endangerment of a child in
the Hayes slaying.

Lash was convicted by a jury last month of 5 counts of aggravated
criminal sexual assault, armed robbery and aggravated unlawful restraint
in the rape of a 42-year-old Springfield real estate agent he lured to a
vacant house on Windsor Road on Nov. 3, 1998.

He is scheduled to be sentenced by Ray for those crimes March 30.

6 days were required to select a jury of 12 and three alternates in that
case, much longer than the time required for the actual trial. More than
180 prospective jurors were interviewed during the process.

Otwell argued prior to Lash's 1st trial that it should be moved out of
Sangamon County because news reports had linked Lash not only to the 1998
rape but also the Hayes murder. The state argued against a change of
venue for that trial, and Ray denied the defense motion.

When a trial is moved to another county, the courts seek a county of
similar size and one far enough away that media coverage of the crime and
ensuing developments wasn't extensive.

"There was a lot of it," Schmidt said of news coverage of the rape trial
in February.

Otwell didn't argue his motion Friday, but at a hearing prior to the 1st
trial presented testimony from two University of Illinois at Springfield
professors who directed a survey designed to measure awareness and
opinion on the Hayes murder case among Sangamon County residents.

Professor Barbara Hayler testified that more than 90 percent of the 194
people who responded to the telephone survey remembered hearing about a
woman's vehicle with a baby inside being found in the parking lot of a
Springfield movie theater.

Authorities say Lash carjacked Hayes and her infant daughter, Alexis,
raped Hayes and shot her in the head before dumping her body in a cornfield.

He then allegedly drove Hayes' 1994 Jeep Grand Cherokee to the parking
lot of the Parkway Pointe 8 movie theater, where he left 10-month-old
Alexis strapped into a car seat in the vehicle.

Hayes' body was discovered the next day in a cornfield near Chatham.

Lash also is charged with raping a 25-year-old apartment rental agent at
knifepoint on Dec. 29, 1995, after posing as a prospective tenant. Trial
in that case also is scheduled for March 26, but Lash will be tried for
the Hayes murder 1st.

Police say DNA evidence links Lash to all 3 crimes.

(source: The State Journal-Register)