A local judge has denied both of Carlton Gary's last-minute motions Wednesday. Judge Robert Johnston took District Attorney Julia Slater's recommendations to deny Gary's stay of execution and request for DNA testing.
Carlton Gary is also known as the Columbus Stocking Strangler. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 1986 for the rapes and murders of three elderly Columbus women. DNA testing was unavailable at the time of his trial.
Two days ago, Gary's counsel, Jack Martin, filed the motions to stay his execution to allow time for reliable forensic DNA testing. Martin writes in the motion that he witnessed untested crime scene evidence in the property room of the Columbus Police Department December 4.
Martin was accompanied by Aimee Maxwell, executive director of the Georgia Innocence Project. Maxwell is considered by her organization to be a "post-conviction DNA expert." She deemed that several items in the property room were suitable for DNA testing, including samples from victims' bedding, bodies, clothing and scrapings from underneath fingernails.
This original "serological" evidence was thought to have been destroyed, according to Judge Pullen's testimony (then D.A.) during Gary's 1994 federal habeus corpus proceedings.
But Wednesday, Johnston denied Martin's motion on the basis that it would have required an extraordinary new trial. He also argues that at face value, the motion does not meet the statutory requirements for DNA testing. Furthermore, Johnston contends (as others have, historically) that the Defense has failed to show that Gary would have been acquitted had DNA evidence been available at the time of his 1986 trial.
Johnson also reiterated a claim made by D.A. Julia Slater in her recommendation to deny the motion, that Martin had already viewed the property room evidence in 2001. Slater attached various affadavits attesting to that premise.
Gary's clemency petition hearing is set for Monday, December 14, but two days before his scheduled execution by lethal injection.
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