County plans DNA tests for convicted murders, rapists

Oklahoma County prosecutors are offering to review biological evidence, if available, for 102 convicted murderers and nine convicted rapists who have maintained their innocence.

Fifteen prison inmates already have asked for DNA testing within about one week of receiving their letters, District Attorney Wes Lane said Tuesday.

The district attorney's office chose the 111 defendants after reviewing 275 murder and rape convictions decided by jury trial. Defendants who confessed or pleaded guilty did not receive letters.

Most of the cases are at least 10 years old, when DNA testing was not available.

The district attorney said the point of the project -- a partnership with the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System -- is to use more advanced technology in cases where biological evidence was preserved.

"I got tired of people out there in the public claiming that we as prosecutors wanted convictions at any cost," Lane said. "That's not true. The very reason why we are prosecutors is to protect the innocent and convict only the guilty."

But Jim Bednar, executive director of the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System, said the district attorney's office is moving too slowly on the project. He said his office has been pushing since Feb. 15 for DNA tests for two convicted rapists, co-defendants who Bednar believes are innocent. "There is no sense looking for others if we're not going to take care of the ones we've already identified," he said.

Bednar and Lane agreed Tuesday that they will meet in July about the co-defendants. Lane said there was a miscommunication that delayed the meeting.

"We would both agree that we need to try to get this done as quickly as possible so nobody spends even one extra night in prison," Lane said.

The district attorney said he did not know whether the co- defendants were among the nine convicted rapists who received letters last week.

The defense system has about $50,000 to pay for these DNA tests. Each test at an independent lab will cost about $1,000.

The money is in addition to about $600,000 allocated by the Legislature for review of cases handled by Joyce Gilchrist, a former Oklahoma City forensic chemist accused by the FBI of doing shoddy work and testifying beyond her expertise. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation is reviewing hundreds of her cases.

Gilchrist might have been involved in some of the 111 cases the district attorney's office has offered to review, said Assistant District Attorney Cindy Truong. Also, some of the cases might not even have biological evidence available, she said.

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