DNA tests clear 'killer' who came within nine days of execution

Man freed after 18 years in jail for murder he did not commit

A man who came within nine days of being executed in Virginia has been freed after DNA tests cleared him of a 1982 murder to which he confessed.

A man who came within nine days of being executed in Virginia has been freed after DNA tests cleared him of a 1982 murder to which he confessed.

"I'm glad to be home," a grinning Earl Washington Jr, who had been in prison since 1983, said after his release yesterday. "I'm nervous, not bitter."

Largely illiterate and with an IQ of 69, Washington confessed to the 1982 rape and slaying of Rebecca Lynn Williams though no fingerprints or biological evidence tied him to the crime.

He came within nine days of being executed in the electric chair in 1985 but was granted a stay.

A 1993 DNA test cast doubt on his guilt and prompted then-Gov L Douglas Wilder to commute his sentence to life in 1994. Last fall, additional DNA tests found genetic material belonging to two other men, and Gov Jim Gilmore pardoned Washington.

Now 40, Washington plans to live in a Virginia Beach apartment run by a support center for the mentally disabled. He is under supervised parole for unrelated burglary and malicious wounding convictions.

Washington is among 95 people on death row who have been exonerated, 10 of those through DNA evidence, said Barry Scheck, one of his lawyers.

Six states - Illinois, Nebraska, Arizona, North Carolina, Maryland and Indiana - have launched capital punishment studies looking at issues ranging from the quality of defence lawyers to the overall functioning of the death penalty, said Paula Bernstein of the Death Penalty Information Centre.

Earlier this month, the Virginia Senate unanimously backed legislation that would wipe out the 21-day limit for condemned inmates to present new evidence of innocence. The measure is before the House.

Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, Virginia has executed 81 people, second only to Texas's 243 executions

Washington said he celebrated his release with chocolate doughnuts. Asked what his plans were for Tuesday, his first full day of freedom, he said: "I would like to sleep all day tomorrow."

Lila White, a spokeswoman for the governor, said no one has been implicated in Williams' slaying.