by TChris

David Wayne Boyce is asking the Virginia Supreme Court to rule that DNA tests prove he wasn't present when Timothy Askew was killed in May 1990.

"I am wrongly incarcerated for 14 years for a crime I did not commit," Boyce wrote in the 37-page petition. "Please end this horrible living nightmare of gross injustice and set me free."

Boyce had been sharing a motel room with Askew, but Askew rented a second room on the night of his death. Askew was killed in that room. Recent DNA tests on crime scene evidence, including hair, blood, and seminal fluid, found no DNA from Boyce, although they indicated the presence of DNA from someone other than Askew.

As is customary, the prosecution refuses to admit the possibility that it prosecuted an innocent man. It deems the DNA evidence "inconclusive." Maybe, but no physical evidence ever linked Boyce to the crime, and the prosecution based its case on an alleged confession given to a jailhouse informant -- evidence that is notoriously unreliable. Even if the court doesn't accept Boyce's plea to be set free, it should give him a new trial. His jury didn't hear all the evidence that, thanks to advances in DNA testing, now casts a dark shadow of doubt on Boyce's guilt.