Convicted killer executed despite 'potential' evidence

A convicted killer was executed, even though the handling of his case by Houston’s troubled police laboratory had been called into question by two state senators and the police chief himself.

Edward Green III, 30, was put to death last night despite his attorneys’ pleas that evidence relevant to his double murder trial might be in some 280 recently-discovered boxes that had been mislabelled and improperly stored.

Green’s lawyers, as well as the senators and the police chief, had wanted all executions stayed pending review of the boxes. In Green’s case, prosecutors said all evidence had been accounted for.

Governor Rick Perry refused to impose a blanket moratorium on Harris County executions and rejected a 30-day reprieve for Green.

The US Supreme Court and Texas’ high court also declined to block Green’s execution, and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles twice refused clemency requests.

“The main evidence leading to Green’s conviction is his own confession to these brutal and senseless murders,” the governor said.

Green was convicted of fatally shooting Edward Haden, 72, and Helen O’Sullivan, 63, during a 1992 robbery.

Green’s lawyers had questioned the reliability of ballistics evidence, but the Houston police laboratory controversy for the past two years has centred on the reliability of its DNA testing procedures.

The lab’s DNA section has been closed since a 2002 audit revealed possible contamination of evidence, inadequate training for analysts and insufficient documentation.

DNA retesting has been ordered in about 400 other cases, including 17 of death-row inmates who have not been assigned execution dates.

Green made a final statement, apologising to families of the victims.

“I do not come here with the intention to make myself out to be a person I am not,” Green said in a brief final statement.

“I never claimed to be the best person. I did the best I could with what I had.”