Inmate should go free, attorney general says

DNA tests have proved the inmate is innocent of the rape and murder that sent him to prison.
AKRON (AP) -- A man serving a life sentence for murder and rape is innocent and should be released, Attorney General Jim Petro has told the county prosecutor.
The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation has confirmed DNA tests conducted by a private company that show Clarence Elkins, 42, could not have committed the crimes, Petro wrote in a letter Friday to Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh.
Elkins, who is eligible for parole in 2054, was convicted of the 1998 rape and murder of his mother-in-law, Judith Johnson, 58, and rape of his then 6-year-old granddaughter.
"I believe we owe it to Mr. Elkins and the justice system to do everything we can to ensure that a just outcome has been reached in this case," Petro wrote.
Petro said he hopes further analysis will reveal who killed Johnson.
"While that would certainly be a fortuitous result, it is not relevant to demonstrating Mr. Elkins' actual innocence, which the current test results already accomplish," he wrote.
Mark Godsey, a University of Cincinnati law professor, has said the DNA from the evidence is a close match to Earl Gene Mann, 32.
About another inmate
Mann, who has not been officially linked to the crimes for which Elkins was convicted, is serving a seven-year sentence for raping three girls.
Elkins helped secure the DNA sample by retrieving a cigarette butt used by Mann, a fellow inmate at the Mansfield Correctional Institution.
Godsey is director of the Ohio Innocence Project, which seeks to apply DNA evidence to clear people who are wrongly convicted. He sent the DNA tests conducted by a private company, Orchid Cellmark, to Petro's office a month ago.
In July, Summit County Common Pleas Judge Judy Hunter ruled that the possibility that Elkins' DNA doesn't match the crime DNA, meaning someone else must have committed the crime, would not have persuaded a jury to disregard the prosecution evidence presented at Elkins' trial.
Elkins was convicted in 1999 primarily on the strength of his niece's testimony, who said she saw her "Uncle Clarence" attack her grandmother before he attacked her.
Three years ago, Elkins' niece recanted her identification. In 2002, a judge denied Elkins' bid for a new trial, saying the girl's retraction was tainted in part by Elkins' other family members.
The Summit County prosecutor's office received Petro's letter late Friday, said Mary Ann Kovach, chief counsel of the criminal division. Kovach said she plans to review the test results with the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation.
Kovach also plans to talk with Petro's office to make clear the case was based on the niece's testimony, not the DNA evidence.
"If they really believe it's a DNA case and there's other evidence that suggests that Elkins is innocent and someone else is guilty, we are certainly going to pursue that," Kovach said.