The Mississippi Supreme Court today filed an order permitting Willie Manning to pursue his request for DNA and fingerprint testing in the Oktibbeha circuit court (see the Mississippi Supreme Court order here). The decision of the judges was unanimous, reversing their earlier 5:4 ruling which denied this request.

Unfortunately, the Court denied the other requests that Willie made. With a majority of only 5:4 the judges turned down Willie’s request for hearings to consider the reliability of expert testimony regarding ballistics analysis and hair analysis. Willie also requested that his convictions be set aside; the judges denied this unanimously.

The decisions are reported at Yahoo News.