US man freed by DNA tests
source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2218630.stm
A man who spent 17 years in prison in the US for the rape and murder of a teenage girl has had his conviction overturned, after DNA tests showed he was innocent.
Eddie Joe Lloyd was sentenced to life in prison after police said he had confessed to raping and strangling 16-year-old Michelle Jackson in 1984.
However, he subsequently protested his innocence and took advantage of a new law in Michigan allowing convicted criminals to ask for DNA testing to prove it.
More than 100 people have now had convictions overturned in the US since DNA testing was introduced, and campaigners believe the latest case adds weight to the case for the abolition of the death penalty.
DNA breakthrough
Mr Lloyd was a patient in a psychiatric hospital when he allegedly confessed to the rape and murder of the teenage girl.
At the time of his conviction a judge at the Wayne County Circuit Court in Detroit lamented that Michigan did not have the death penalty. If it had, Mr Lloyd would be dead.
But Mr Lloyd later said he had been set up, and insisted on using the new state law allowing DNA testing, which proved his innocence.
After hearing his conviction was overturned on Monday, Mr Lloyd burst into tears.
"Lady Justice is blind. Sometimes, she's deaf," he said later at a news conference.
"Sometimes the wheels of justice grind very slowly, sometimes they grind in reverse."
Mr Lloyd became the 110th convicted person in the US to be exonerated by DNA testing, according to the Innocence Project, which advocates DNA probes to help innocent prisoners.
Campaigners against the death penalty also say there are hundreds more people - many on death row - who will be killed before science can come to their aid.
source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2218630.stm
A man who spent 17 years in prison in the US for the rape and murder of a teenage girl has had his conviction overturned, after DNA tests showed he was innocent.
Eddie Joe Lloyd was sentenced to life in prison after police said he had confessed to raping and strangling 16-year-old Michelle Jackson in 1984.
However, he subsequently protested his innocence and took advantage of a new law in Michigan allowing convicted criminals to ask for DNA testing to prove it.
More than 100 people have now had convictions overturned in the US since DNA testing was introduced, and campaigners believe the latest case adds weight to the case for the abolition of the death penalty.
DNA breakthrough
Mr Lloyd was a patient in a psychiatric hospital when he allegedly confessed to the rape and murder of the teenage girl.
At the time of his conviction a judge at the Wayne County Circuit Court in Detroit lamented that Michigan did not have the death penalty. If it had, Mr Lloyd would be dead.
But Mr Lloyd later said he had been set up, and insisted on using the new state law allowing DNA testing, which proved his innocence.
After hearing his conviction was overturned on Monday, Mr Lloyd burst into tears.
"Lady Justice is blind. Sometimes, she's deaf," he said later at a news conference.
"Sometimes the wheels of justice grind very slowly, sometimes they grind in reverse."
Mr Lloyd became the 110th convicted person in the US to be exonerated by DNA testing, according to the Innocence Project, which advocates DNA probes to help innocent prisoners.
Campaigners against the death penalty also say there are hundreds more people - many on death row - who will be killed before science can come to their aid.