Hood: DNA Test wouldn’t exonerate death row inmate

Hood: DNA Test wouldn’t exonerate death row inmate

Attorney General Jim Hood said a new round of DNA testing on evidence collected against death-row inmate Willie Jerome Manning would not exonerate him in the 1992 deaths of two students.

Manning, now 44, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the state penitentiary at Parchman.

“Any time there is legitimate, exculpatory evidence, capable of DNA testing, the state is prepared to conduct testing,” Hood said in a statement released late Friday.

“However when the defense waits until the 11th hour to raise such claims, which could not possibly exonerate their client, courts are loathe to be subjected to these types of dilatory defense tactics.”

Sun Herald
5/4/13