Friday Roundup: Judges and Lawmakers Weigh In

A Florida Judge who ruled in James Bain’s favor to get post-conviction DNA testing finally got a chance to meet the man he helped exonerate

.  Bain served 35 years in prison for a kidnapping and rape he did not commit.  He unsuccessfully petitioned judges four times to have the DNA from his 1974 conviction tested before Judge Thomas Gallen told a circuit judge to reconsider.

The Idaho Innocence Project continues to work on Christopher Tapp’s innocence claim in the 1996 rape and murder of a young woman

.   Tapp has never been linked to the crime by physical evidence but there is a complete DNA profile of the likely perpetrator.  The Idaho Innocence Project is asking the FBI to search state and/or national DNA database for similar profiles to the samples from the crime.

A Michigan man who was wrongfully convicted of a 2005 murder might never have been convicted if the jury heard testimony on the inaccuracy of surveillance video from his case,

according to the opinion of a U.S. District Judge

.  In October 2007, Claude McCollum was released from prison and charges were dismissed.  A pending lawsuit includes claims of police and prosecutorial misconduct.  McCollum’s compensation lawsuit will be heard next month.

A Texas State Senator said this week that Texas Forensic Science Commission Chairman John Bradley is dragging his feet with the commission and that the perception is that the group is “

not being open and transparent

.”

An art exhibition in New York examining human memory and mistaken identity

includes mug shots of several Innocence Project clients who served years in prison for crimes they didn’t commit.