Judge Denies Death Row Inmate's Request for DNA Testing

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By Associated Press

Published: 07/28/2003

A week before a scheduled execution, a federal judge on Friday denied a Indiana death-row inmate's request for an order to conduct DNA testing he believes could exonerate him in two 1986 shooting deaths.
Also, the state Supreme Court on Friday denied Darnell Williams' request for consideration of new evidence in the case, and a judge who presided over post-conviction proceedings wrote a letter to the Indiana Parole Board urging Williams be granted a reprieve.
The developments came a week before Darnell Williams' scheduled execution Aug. 1 at the state prison in Michigan City, and three days before Indiana Parole Board is to make a clemency recommendation to Gov. Frank O'Bannon.
Williams is seeking an order requiring the state to release clothing for DNA testing of blood stains. Williams hopes to introduce evidence from the tests at Monday's clemency hearing.
His attorneys maintain tests could show the blood was from neither of the victims Williams is accused of killing, which would be contrary to evidence presented at trial.
Williams and Gregory Rouster were convicted in the 1986 shooting deaths of John and Henrietta Rease, who operated a small candy store from inside their home in Gary. The couple were Rouster's former foster parents, and he apparently believed they owed him money, prosecutors said.
In U.S. District Court on Friday, Judge John Tinder denied Williams' request for a DNA testing order.
Tinder wrote in his opinion that there was no legal justification to order a DNA test. But he said that O'Bannon could seek the test as he considers clemency for Williams.
The state Supreme Court denied a similar DNA testing request last month. Justices said that regardless of what the tests might show, there was plenty of additional evidence to support Williams' death sentence.
On Friday, in a split 3-2 decision, the court refused a request to consider new evidence.
'None of these claims now being raised one week before the scheduled execution, after over 16 years of litigation, present any reason to undermine confidence in a sentence recommended by the jury and affirmed at every level of review by federal and state courts,' Acting Chief Justice Frank Sullivan Jr. wrote in his opinion for the majority.
Defense attorney Juliet Yackel declined to comment on Tinder's ruling but said the defense would continue 'to pursue all legal avenues' to prevent the execution.
On Friday, T. Edward Page, a Lake County judge who presided over post- conviction hearings for Williams and Rouster, wrote the parole board to urge that Williams' death sentence be commuted.
Page wrote, 'I believe it would be a grave injustice for Darnell Williams to be executed as ordered.'
'The evidence at trial established that Gregory Rouster was probably the more culpable of the two defendants in committing the murders,' the letter said.
Williams has exhausted the state and federal appeals he was entitled to by law, including two reviews by the state Supreme Court. But his attorneys have asked the state's justices to consider further arguments for vacating the death sentence.
Among those claims is that Williams is mentally retarded and therefore ineligible for the death penalty. The state disputes that claim, and in a brief filed before the high court Thursday, said Williams was a cold-blooded killer who deserves to die for his crimes.
Meanwhile, a federal judge in South Bend has scheduled oral arguments for Monday to hear claims by Williams' attorneys that some mitigating evidence was not considered.
The trial court in the murder case recently found that Rouster, now known as Gamba Rastafari, is mentally retarded and granted him post-conviction relief from the death sentence. That judgment is not yet final.

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