Barry Scheck, Innocence Project attack Claude Jones execution

Innocence Project co-founder and lawyer Barry Scheck is still looking for that first innocent man executed since the Death Peanlty was re-instated 35 years ago.

In Claude Jones, who was executed 10  years ago by Texas, Scheck evidently believes he has found  that man.

Jones was convicted and executed for the slaying of liquor  store owner Allen Hilzendager, who was shot three times outside Point Blank which is near Houston, Texas. 

Three days after the shooting he was identified as the robber of a suburban Houston bank.  He was arrested a few weeks later in Fort Myers, Florida, where he was charged with robbery and bank robbery there, according to an Associated Press article which ran in the Wichita Falls Times and Record News Sunday.

Jones criminal record dated all the way back to 1959.  He poured flammable liquid on a cellmate and burned him to death while serving a 21-year prison sentence in Kansas.

Sheck is not contesting the fact that Claude Jones brutally murdered his cellmate by burnng him to death.

Scheck's bone of contention is a piece of hair which he says is the only physical evidence which tied Jones to a fatal shooting during the robbery of an East Texas liquor store in 1989 was never subjected to DNA testing.  However, an accomplice of Jones who provided him with the gun, testified at the trial that Jones admitted to him he pulled the trigger and shot to death the store owner.  Testimony at the trial indicated Jones' two accomplices waited outside in a get-away car while Jones entered the store with a .357 magnum, shot the victim three times and stole cash.  The three men were reportedly in the middle of a multi-state crime spree.

Scheck says the  execution of Jones only took place because then-Governor George Bush wasn't told by his legal team that Jones' lawyer was seeking DNA testing on the hair used to help convict him.

Scheck claims that since later DNA testing after Jones' execution showed it was not Jones' hair, there was a reasonable doubt as to Jones' guilt.  Reports indicate  that the recent DNA testing excludes the hair as belonging to Jones.  Instead it indicates that the hair could belong to the victim.

A forensics expert at his trial testified the hair "could" have come from  Jones but not from an accomplice or the store owner.

Scheck made his comments attacking the death penalty Friday in Houston during a news conference.

Former Texas Governor Mark White appeared with Scheck at the press conference Friday.

White was Texas Attorney General in 1982 when the first lethal injection execution occurred in Texas.  In his role as Texas Governor, he oversaw the execution of 19 inmates.  His term ended in 1987.

White agreed with Scheck that the State should have allowed DNA testing of the hair prior to the execution of Claude Jones.

Wichita Falls prosecutors have successfuly prosecuted several death penalty cases over the years and never failed to allow DNA testing prior to any criminal trial.

Scheck, who many times has used DNA testing results to save defendants from executions, discredited DNA testimony in 1995 during the trial of O.J. Simpson for murder.  Scheck received praise for his relentless cross examination of DNA expert witnesses when the DNA indicated Simpson's blood was at the crime scene and the victim's blood was in his vehicle.

Although Scheck was successful in convincing a Los Angeles jury that Simpson was not guilty despite the overwhelming DNA evidence against him, Simpson  was later convicted of other felonies in Nevada and is now serving prison time.

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