DNA tests offer a second chance for convicts to prove innocence

A public defender wonders why so few have inquired about testing in old cases.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- Convicted killer Dena Lambert wants another chance to prove she killed her victim, an 83-year-old man she met in a bar, in self-defense. The man's daughter says the claim is ridiculous and should be denied.
Lambert is one of 23 inmates who applied to Ohio courts to have their DNA tested under the law permitting the testing in old cases if the results could change the outcome of a conviction, according to the applications compiled by the attorney general and Ohio Public Defender's Office. Ohio has about 44,500 inmates.
The offenders applying include 10 people convicted of murder or involuntary manslaughter and 11 convicted of rape or attempted rape.
The law gives prisoners with at least one year left on their sentences the chance to apply for the testing.
An inmate who originally pleaded innocent to the crime for which he or she was convicted can apply to a Common Pleas Court judge for the testing. If the judge denied the application, the inmate could take it to a state appeals court.
If the inmate pleaded guilty and a prosecutor doesn't agree to testing, there is no test or appeal.
The deadline
Inmates have until October 2004 to apply. Officials expect most applications to involve cases in which DNA testing wasn't available or not as sophisticated as today's tests.
Prosecutors say that while the law is meant to right wrongs, it will serve mainly to show the courts are working the way they're supposed to.
"If somebody was wrongfully convicted, then DNA's there as a safety net," said James Canepa, chief deputy attorney general for criminal justice. "It's a double-edged sword -- while it can exonerate him, it can also confirm guilt."
Defense attorneys say it's still too hard to get DNA tested under the law.
The way the law is set up, "it's going to wind up leaving people behind, even people that DNA may have helped because you have to show so much to get the test," said James Foley, an assistant state public defender. "But it's certainly better than nothing."
Foley said he's trying to figure out why so few inmates -- about 150 -- have asked for information about the program. He's glad relatively few have applied to date, since inmates are going to need help in the process and shouldn't be rushing to apply without lawyers, he said.
Difficult case
Lambert, who murdered Harry Robinson in Akron in 1988, acknowledged hers is a difficult case. But she chose to apply in the hopes that DNA tests of blood on objects she handled that night will prove she had been injured and was fighting off an attack.
Lambert, 39, is serving 30 to life at the Ohio Reformatory For Women in Marysville in central Ohio.
"If I get my freedom, it's cool," Lambert said in a prison interview with The Associated Press. "If this doesn't provide me an opportunity to go out there, I still got a tremendous purpose in my life."
Lambert, wearing a short-sleeved green prison blouse and a silver cross around her neck, occasionally whispered and fought tears. She said she struggles daily with the knowledge that she took a life.
Charlotte Pozza, the daughter of Lambert's victim, scoffed at Lambert's DNA claim.
"She cut herself very badly in the process of murdering my father, that's why her blood was there also," said Pozza, 66, of Akron.
Alleges attack
Lambert claimed that Robinson, whom she'd met at a nearby bar, had tried to attack her with a knife and rape her after they went to his apartment. But prosecutors successfully argued that Lambert, a drifter who had been in Akron three days, had gone to Robinson's apartment to rob him and killed him when he resisted.
Lambert, 39, a self-described Army brat growing up, had just moved to Akron from Arizona when the attack happened. She said she had been assaulted before and survived a near fatal beating in Oklahoma in 1983.
She says that experience may explain her reaction that night in Robinson's apartment.
For her, the most important thing about the DNA application is "having the opportunity to go back in the courts, having the opportunity to prove that I was acting in self-defense," she said.
Pozza said her father, a retired Goodyear tire maker, liked going to the bar to talk to people. She said he was likely taken in by Lambert's story of needing help.
"She attacked him because she wanted his money," Pozza said. "My father was a feisty man; he would have fought her."