Baltimore City prosecutors will not give up on the 1988 murder convictions of James Owens and James Thompson despite new DNA evidence, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.
If James Owens, 41, and James Thompson, 47, overturn their 1988 murder convictions, they could become the seventh and eighth men in Maryland history released from prison because of postconviction DNA exonerations, according to the Maryland Public Defender?s Office.
But the Baltimore City State?s Attorney?s Office says the new DNA evidence ? semen and blood taken from the crime scene ? does not mean they didn?t commit the crime. Margaret Burns, the spokeswoman for State?s Attorney Patricia Jessamy, called the new DNA evidence “trivial.”
“They are in no way exonerated,” she said. “The defense is saying that there is 100 percent accuracy in a sample taken from an autopsy table over 20 years ago.
“They are assuming that sample was correctly labeled, correctly filed and correctly stored for 20 years and that is enough evidence to outweigh a murder confession and all the other evidence.”
Owens and Thompson were convicted in 1988 of the Aug. 2, 1987, murder of Colleen Williar in the upstairs bedroom of her Baltimore home.
At Owens? Feb. 29, 1988, trial, Thompson confessed to burglarizing Williar?s home and watching as Owens beat, raped, stabbed and strangled the victim.
But defense attorneys announced this week that new DNA results exclude Thompson and Owens as the originators of the sperm found on Williar?s body, and the blood stain on Thompson?s pants came from a man ? not Williar.
Owens? lawyer, Stephen Mercer, said the new evidence shows his client is innocent.
“For nearly 20 years, the person who committed this crime has not been apprehended,” he said.
