DNA Evidence May Clear Executed Man Who Spent 22 Years Insisting He Was Innocent Of Murder

In 1993, Lendell Lee was arrested and convicted of the murder of Debra Reese. Though he maintained his innocence, he was executed via lethal injection in 2017. Now, four years later, investigators found new DNA evidence that clears the executed man of his accused crime. (1)

DNA Evidence Clears Executed Man of Murder

The death penalty is highly controversial and has even been abolished in many states and other countries. In Arkansas, however, it is still legal. After not occurring for more than a decade, Lee was the first to undergo the death penalty among a host of other people with the same fate. Many claimed that the reason for this was that one of the drugs the state uses for lethal injections was soon going to be unavailable, which naturally has drawn a lot of criticism. (1)

In Lee’s case, where recent DNA evidence has potentially cleared the executed man of his crime. The Supreme Court was divided as to whether or not he should have been injected in the first place. (1)

“No one should be executed when there is a possibility that person is innocent,” said attorney Nina Morrison shortly after Lee’s execution. (1)

This year, investigators found DNA evidence on the murder weapon that doesn’t belong to Lee at all. In fact, they found that Lee’s DNA isn’t on the weapon at all. The lawyer on the case for The Innocence Project admits that the new evidence is incomplete and partial; it is still significant. Lee’s family is hopeful that this recent discovery will bring some justice to Lee’s name. (1)

Before he was executed Ledell Lee told the BBC, “My dying words will always be, as it has been, I am an innocent man.” (2)

Read: Man sues Hertz over receipt that cleared him of murder

The Governor Defends Their Position

Governor Asa Hutchinson still stands by their decision to apply the death penalty to Lee’s case four years ago. The jury, they say, found Lee guilty based on the information that they had. This information was eyewitnesses that place Lee at the scene when the crime was committed. (1)

“Whenever you make tough decisions, whenever you have to carry out the decision of a jury, you realize that it’s been reviewed by the Supreme Court at every level,” they said in a news conference. “They affirm the convictions, and it’s my duty to carry out the law.” (1)

Evidence that made Lee seem guilty included:

• A neighbor saw him enter and leave Reese’s house the day of the murder
• A different neighbor said Lee came to their house asking to use tools, which prosecutors suggest was his tactic for finding women who are home alone.
• A shoe print
• Human blood was found in Lee’s shoe.

Four years after Lee’s death, however, lawyers for Lee found the photo evidence lineup to be quite biased. New testing also found DNA of an unknown person on the murder weapon and the bloody t-shirt wrapped around the weapon. Though it did not match any DNA in the database, they will now test it again to see if it matches any in the updated version. (1)

A Serial Predator

The courts are also still confident that they made the right decision because this murder case was not Lee’s first run-in with the law. Authorities also found Lee associated with four other crimes when they arrested him in the early 90s: Three sexual assault cases and one homicide. The homicide and one of the sexual assault cases were dropped. (1)

“I think what makes Ledell Lee particularly deserving — and no other penalty but the death penalty would be proportional to the crimes that he has committed — would be this pattern of being a serial rapist and a killer,” said prosecutor Holly Lodge Meyer. (1)

Despite this, the court was still divided four out of five for those against and those for Lee’s lethal injection, which is why it went ahead. Lee’s lawyers maintain his innocence for this crime and are still working towards clearing his name four years after his death. (1)

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