DNA testing a key as Greene County man on death row awaits decision on new trial
Jul. 24—The hearing to determine whether a Greene County man will get a new trial after 28 years on death row ended Tuesday, but the judge's decision on David Lee Myers' fate could take awhile.
Lawyers for Myers argued that he should be granted a new trial because new DNA testing results on the railroad spike and one of the rocks used in the murder exclude Myers as the source of male DNA on both. Further, Myers' attorneys said, Myers' DNA was not found anywhere on Maher.
In light of this, there is "a strong probability" that at least one juror's mind would be changed, and the trial would have a different result, said Elizabeth Smith, a partner with the Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease law firm during closing arguments Tuesday.
"The jury has never heard that Myers' DNA was not underneath the victim's fingernails. It was not on her jeans, or the shirt that was thought to (be used) to strangle her, and her DNA is not on his clothes. The jury has not heard this evidence," Smith said.
Prosecutors for the state say it must first be established whether the court has jurisdiction over the matter.
Even if it does, they say, the evidence of Myers' guilt presented in 1996 is overwhelming, even without the inclusion of DNA analysis. This evidence includes several key witnesses who saw Myers leave the Round Table Bar in Xenia with Maher, Myers' confession to the crime to a fellow inmate, and changing his story during the trial, among others.
"This was never a DNA case. It didn't need to be a DNA case. There was overwhelming non-forensic evidence against the defendant," said Greene County Prosecutor's Office Appellate Counsel Megan Hammond. "(DNA) is one piece of the puzzle."
Judge Jonathan Hein, who previously served as a Darke County judge for 25 years, declined Tuesday to give an exact timeline of when he would make his decision.
Lawyers for Myers said the conviction obtained in 1996 was based on junk science. At the time of the trial, analysis of a pubic hair found at the crime scene, using a technique called microscopy, placed Myers at the scene of the murder. However, microscopy for purposes of forensic identification has since been debunked in the last 30 years, attorneys say, and has been supplanted by much more sophisticated forensic science techniques.
"We are obligated to bring into this discussion the prior evidence that was presented at trial, and to demonstrate that, in fact, it is no longer valid," Smith said.
"We have to look at the totality of the evidence, the weak circumstantial evidence, to demonstrate the overwhelming probative value of the new DNA evidence," she said.
Prosecutors said forensic laboratory testing standards are determined by the laboratories themselves, are not standardized, and were ultimately inconclusive as to Myers' guilt or innocence.
"The testimony was not that they couldn't come up with a conclusion because they didn't have a reference standard. It was because they couldn't come up with a conclusion based on their own policies," Hammond said. "When that happened, defendant brought in experts who conducted analysis on their own. They're not accredited, they lower their analysis thresholds below what other labs said was advisable, and were willing to give very impressive probabilities based on limited information."
The Greene County Prosecutor's Office declined to answer further questions Tuesday, then released a statement Wednesday, pointing out that Myers' conviction was upheld in previous appeals to the Second District Court of Appeals and the Ohio Supreme Court.
"I have read the entire transcript in this case and I have reviewed all the evidence. It continues to be my view that the jury got it right in 1996, and that David Lee Myers committed this crime," said Greene County prosecutor David Hayes. "The judge hearing this case will undoubtedly consider all the evidence and decide whether or not Myers should receive a new trial. It is our view that he should not be granted a new trial and we have made that argument and we will continue to make that argument.
Myers' lawyers released a statement Tuesday.
"David Myers, who has maintained his innocence for more than 35 years, was finally granted access to DNA testing in 2020," Myers' lawyers said. "The testing revealed male DNA on the railroad spike used to kill the victim and a rock used in the assault, and importantly, the results excluded Mr. Myers as the source of that DNA. Because of this newly discovered exculpatory DNA evidence, and because his conviction and death sentence were based on false, misleading and unreliable forensic science that has since been debunked by the scientific community, Mr. Myers deserves a fair, new trial where a jury can hear all of the evidence."
Amanda Maher, 18 and a mother of one child, was out drinking with her boyfriend, Glenn Smith, and with Myers, at two bars on the night of Aug. 3-4, according to news reports at the time and case documents.
Shortly after 1 a.m., Smith was arrested at one of the bars where the three were together. A police officer involved in Smith's arrest said he saw Maher and Myers walking together minutes later, in the direction of the railroad tracks on Xenia's south side. Myers denies that. Maher's body was found along those railroad tracks around 3 a.m. with a railroad spike driven through her head.
