DNA tests in US state to be reviewed after error
Publish date: 16 May 2005
Issue Number: 1335
Diary: Legalbrief Today
Category: Corruption
Scores of past prosecutions, including those involving some of the nearly two dozen inmates on Virginia\'s death row, may be reviewed after an independent audit found that the US states central crime laboratory had botched DNA tests in a leading capital murder case.
The New York Times reports that Virginias Governor has now ordered a review of the lab\'s handling of testing in 150 other cases as well. The governor called for the independent audit of the lab in response to the case of Earl Washington, a retarded man who came within days of execution for a rape and killing before DNA evidence, though not resolving the case, did raise doubts about his guilt. An earlier DNA test conducted in 2000 was flawed. Full report in The New York Times
