In a development that can only cast further doubt on the safety of Willie’s conviction, the press has reported that the Justice Department and FBI have admitted that “testimony containing erroneous statements regarding microscopic hair comparison analysis was used in this case” and “exceeded the limits of science and was therefore invalid”. This hair evidence was presented as significant at Willie’s trial: it was referred to repeatedly during the prosecutor’s summation. We have now been told that this valuable evidence should be disregarded. If testing of biological evidence becomes possible following a stay of execution, it may again take on significance.

See reports in the Jackson Free Press and the Washington Post.

Other reports about Willie have appeared in the national and international press, in the New York Times and the Guardian, and exonerated death row inmate, Kennedy Brewer said that DNA testing should be offered to Willie in the same way that it was offered to him (see report in the Clarion Ledger).