"A judge denied former Akron Police Capt. Douglas Prade's request for a new murder trial. Summit County Judge Christine Croce ruled Friday in favor of Summit
County prosecutor's arguments that DNA evidence found on Prade's
ex-wife's lab coat is not enough to warrant a new trial. "The Defendant has failed to introduce any new evidence that the jury
had not already considered," Croce wrote in her 18-page decision. Prade was convicted in 1998 in the death of his wife Dr. Margot
Prade. He was in prison until January 2013 when then-Summit County
Common Pleas Judge Judy Hunter exonerated him based on DNA evidence
found on the wife's lab coat. The DNA did not belong to her ex-husband. Prade was freed from prison
and spent 18 months in Akron repairing his home and living as a free
man. The Ohio 9th District Court of Appeals overturned Hunter's
exoneration in October 2014 saying there was overwhelming evidence that
Douglas Prade killed his wife. The Ohio Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal of that decision.
The case was sent back to Croce, who replaced Hunter on the bench, to
decide whether to hold a new trial.........(Defence lawyer) Alden
argued during a June hearing that
the DNA evidence isn't strong enough for analysts to develop a full
profile, but is strong enough to rule out Douglas Prade as the source of
the DNA. Chief Assistant Summit County Prosecutor Brad Gessner countered that
the 1998 jury's conviction came from other evidence, including that
Prade was a serial stalker, that he benefited from Margot Prade's life
insurance policy and that he repeatedly threatened to kill her, Gessner
said. Gessner pointed out that an appeals court found
"overwhelming" circumstantial evidence supporting
Prade's guilt. He also said that the swatch of Margo Prade's lab coat
might have been contaminated by various tests and from sitting in a box
for 17 years."
http://www.cleveland.com/akron/index.ssf/2016/03/judge_denies_akron_police_capt.html
See blogger Mike Bower's (CSIDDS: Forensics on Trial) at the link below: "Nothing but eyewitness testimony was used to convict Prade of
murdering his wife. The court refuses to concede that neither unknown
DNA taken from the “bitemark area” nor the pseudo-science of the
prosecution’s bitemark expert would be grounds for a new trial. It uses
the off-topic reasons listed in OHIO case law that are silent regarding
junk forensic identification (the bitemark on skin) used to identify
Prade as the killer. The court says new objections to bitemarks are
nothing new. What the judges refuse to consider is that new research
supports bitemark identification as being a psuedo-science. In
TEXAS, this conviction would be held as compelling evidence of prejudice and considered evidence of an unfair trial."
http://csidds.com/2016/03/14/dna-contamination-from-unknown-persons-over-bitemark-ruled-ineffective-for-new-prade-trial/