To Baltimore City prosecutors, James Thompson is a no-good criminal who confessed to his role in the rape and murder of a young woman nearly two decades ago.
To attorneys with the state?s Innocence Project, Thompson is a wrongfully convicted man exonerated by new DNA evidence. Both sides clashed Wednesday in Baltimore City Circuit Court arguing over whether Thompson, 47, should get a new trial after recently tested blood and semen samples cast doubt upon his conviction.
“The sperm on the slide came from a single source, and it was not Mr. Thompson and it was not [co-defendant James] Owens,” said Public Defender Suzanne Drouet. “… This evidence completely undermines the state?s theory of the case.”
But prosecutor Mark Cohen argued against a new trial, saying Thompson confessed to his role in the crime in front of a judge and jury with no police pressure.
“That?s what he said,” Cohen told Judge Marcella Holland. “It?s not what a police officer pressured him to say. It?s what he said.”
In May, a Baltimore City judge granted a new trial for Thompson?s co-defendant, James Owens, 41. Holland now must rule on whether Thompson also will be granted a new trial. At Owens? Feb. 29, 1988, trial, Thompson confessed to burglarizing the house of Colleen Williar, 24, and masturbating over her while Owens beat, raped, stabbed and strangled her.
But defense attorneys announced in October that new DNA results, from semen and blood taken from the crime scene, exclude Thompson and Owens as the originators of the sperm found on Williar?s body. They also said a bloodstain on Thompson?s pants came from a man ? not Williar.
If the men?s convictions are overturned, they could become the seventh and eighth men in Maryland history released from prison because of post-conviction DNA exonerations, according to the Maryland Public Defender?s Office.
