South Carolina- DNA points to another suspect so why is the prosecution still charging Billy Wayne Cope with murder?
Columbia, SC- A life sentence given in a York County murder case before the S.C. Supreme Court has attracted the attention of veteran ex-prosecutors and national legal experts, who say it is a classic case of an innocent man being sentenced to life in prison for a murder he didn’t commit.
The case of the State vs. Billy Wayne Cope involves a surprise DNA match, a possible false confession and questions about whether police and prosecutors overreached.
“Whatever the Supreme Court decides to do, we will be teaching this case for the rest of my career,” said University of South Carolina Law School legal ethics professor Greg Adams.
Last month, Adams devoted an entire legal ethics class before some 50 second- and third-year law students to the case. Cope, now 48, in 2004 was convicted of murder and criminal sexual conduct in the strangling death of his daughter Amanda, 12.
In February, Cope’s case will be a centerpiece of a two-day national conference at USC on ethical questions surrounding prosecutors in wrongful-conviction cases, Adams said.
For 20 months, the case has been before the S.C. Supreme Court. It has not yet decided whether to grant a hearing for a new trial.
A major issue stems from DNA found in saliva and semen on Amanda’s body. It was a perfect match but not for Cope.
Instead, the DNA matched that of James Sanders, now 52, an ex-con, sex predator and burglar later charged with breaking into four houses in Cope’s neighborhood and assaulting women just after Amanda was murdered. Police didn’t learn that DNA results linked Sanders but not Cope to Amanda until nine months after Cope had been charged.
http://www.thesunnews.com/2011/12/17/2555242/disputed-dna-murder-case-in-limbo.html