Original Article DNA test upsets death conviction Judi Villa The Arizona Republic Apr. 20, 2005 12:00 AM New DNA testing has cast enough doubt to overturn the conviction of a death-row inmate who has spent 15 years trying to prove his innocence. Clarence David Hill, 56, was condemned for the 1989 murder of his landlord, Dale Edmundson, who was burned alive in Mohave County. At Hill's trial, prosecutors said he hit Edmundson on the head, wrapped him in a bedsheet and drove him in Edmundson's truck to a desert area south of Bullhead City, where Hill doused Edmundson with paint thinner and set him on fire. Recent DNA testing found that Edmundson's blood was not the blood found on Hill's clothing and on the bedsheet, said Hill's attorney, Rick Williams. In fact, Williams said, the blood on the bedsheet was from a female. "It is our position that it exonerates Mr. Hill," Williams said of the evidence. "Mr. Hill has been on death row for 15 years, and he has always maintained his innocence." At the very least, the DNA evidence could have changed the way the case was argued and might have affected the jury's verdict. "It is more likely than not that no reasonable juror would have convicted Mr. Hill in light of the present DNA evidence," Judge Richard Weiss of Mohave County Superior Court wrote in an April 14 ruling to overturn Hill's conviction. But Assistant Attorney General Kent Cattani said, "We still are of the view that it would not have changed the jury's verdict." Since the country's first DNA exoneration in 1989, more inmates have attempted to overturn their sentences with genetic tests that weren't available when they were convicted. Nationwide, 157 inmates have been exonerated, including two in Arizona. In other cases, like this one, DNA testing doesn't clearly exonerate a suspect but raises enough doubt to force new trials. Two other Arizona death-row inmates have had their convictions or sentences overturned because of post-conviction DNA testing. One is awaiting a new sentence. The other was allowed to plead guilty to second-degree murder and sentenced to time served; he walked free in August. The state Attorney General's Office is expected to decide within weeks whether to appeal Weiss' ruling. If they don't, the case will be sent back to Mohave County, where prosecutors will decide if Hill will face a new trial, be offered a plea bargain or if the case will be dismissed. Cattani said the blood evidence was "one minor piece of evidence" and "certainly was not the linchpin of the state's case." "It's not DNA evidence that shows that somebody else committed this crime," Cattani said. "It may have changed the way the case was argued, but it does not exonerate the defendant." Hill's shoe prints were found at the scene and leading from where the truck was found to the victim's home, according to a 1993 Supreme Court ruling on Hill's case. Hill lived in a mobile home on Edmundson's property and witnesses testified the two had quarreled over money about a week before the murder. Hill, who had no steady source of income, had more than $200 and the victim's grocery receipt in his wallet when he was arrested. Edmundson's wallet was empty. Still, Williams said, "There's no way Mr. Hill could have killed Mr. Edmundson, wrapped him in a bedsheet and carried him that far without getting blood on his clothes or on the bedsheet." Williams said he would file a motion within the next few days asking for Hill's release. Hill, he said, is in poor health. He uses a wheelchair and uses oxygen to breathe. "Naturally, he was ecstatic," Williams said of Hill. "He broke down and cried from the news."