DNA testing talks proceed
The exam could prove an executed inmate's guilt or innocence

BY FRANK GREEN

Nov 23, 2005

The governor's office, a group that helps prove inmates innocent and a scientist in California are trying to reach an agreement on possible DNA testing in the case of Roger Keith Coleman, executed in 1992.

Centurion Ministries of Princeton, N.J., requested in 2003 that the testing be ordered by Gov. Mark R. Warner after efforts in the courts by Centurion and four newspapers, including the Richmond Times-Dispatch, failed.

Warner leaves office in January.

Some believe that Coleman was innocent and that DNA testing could prove for the first time since executions were allowed to resume in the U.S. in 1976 that an innocent person has been executed. Others say testing would likely further implicate Coleman, putting to rest decades of controversy.

Evidence in vial

The evidence, spermatozoa, is in a vial held frozen for 15 years by Edward T. Blake of Forensic Science Associates, in California.

Blake has said DNA technology has since progressed and it might now be possible to definitively prove whether Coleman was guilty.

The sample was taken from Wanda McCoy, who was raped and murdered in Grundy on March 10, 1981.

Coleman was tried, convicted and sentenced to death in 1982. The evidence against him included blood and hair samples and his confession to a fellow jail inmate. Coleman had an alibi, but the jury didn't buy it.

Coleman was executed on May 20, 1992, not long after he made the cover of Time magazine and was interviewed for TV by Larry King.

DNA testing was not available at the time of his trial. However, in 1990, a judge had Blake test the evidence. Blake concluded that Coleman and the donor of the tested spermatozoa were within the same 2 percent of the population who could have raped McCoy.

Failed lie-detector test

That test, coupled with other blood tests, found Coleman was within 0.2 percent of the population that could have been the perpetrator. Coleman also failed a lie-detector test administered shortly before he was executed.

Coleman supporters and others contend that the earlier DNA test was not interpreted properly and that the results were based on flawed assumptions.

Blake and James C. McCloskey, executive director of Centurion Ministries, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Ellen Qualls, spokeswoman for Warner, said Warner's counsel, Robert Crouch, "has been working for many months with Centurion Ministries and Dr. Blake to try to come to some agreement about how the evidence can be retested with integrity."

Qualls explained that it must somehow be certified that the sample has not been compromised over the years it has been in storage. If there is retesting, Qualls said, it must also be agreed that it be done by an independent, third-party laboratory.

"They're making progress," Qualls said, but they all "need to be in agreement that the process would have integrity before it is something we would take to the governor for a decision."

Qualls said Warner has also been mindful of the impact retesting could have on the community of Grundy.

A book, "May God Have Mercy" by John C. Tucker, was written about the case, outlining evidence for and against Coleman's innocence.

Tucker said yesterday that new testing should be done for two reasons: If Coleman was innocent, it's important to catch the real killer, and it's important to the public debate about the death penalty to know if an innocent man was executed.

The Virginia attorney general's office fought new testing of the evidence in the courts. However, a spokeswoman said yesterday that the decision is now up to Warner.