STORY: "Court Again Denies DNA Tests in Death Row Case." by reporter Johnathan Silver, published by The Texas Tribune, on October 28, 2015.
PHOTO CAPTION: "Death row inmate Larry Swearingen during an
interview at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas. He was sentenced to
death for the murder of Melissa Trotter. He says he is innocent and
that she was killed while he was already in jail for other offenses."
GIST: "The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for the second time Wednesday
reversed a state district judge’s order that would have allowed East
Texas death row inmate Larry Swearingen to test DNA from evidence in his
murder case. Swearingen, 44, was convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing
19-year-old Melissa Trotter, then a Lone Star College student in 1998.
He was sentenced to death in 2000. His execution date has been set and
stayed multiple times. The death row inmate has argued that he couldn’t have killed Trotter
because he was in jail when she was murdered, and DNA testing would
prove that someone else committed the crime. State District Judge Kelly
Case twice granted Swearingen’s requests for evidence to be tested...Each time, the court ultimately has ruled that results from DNA
testing would not have overcome the “mountain of evidence” establishing
Swearingen's guilt.
