Lawyer: DNA excludes convicted murderer
DA’s Office says conviction still valid
New DNA tests of hair and blood found at the scene of a 1986 murder exclude the man serving a life sentence in connection to the crime, a defense attorney said in court Monday, even as the Attorney General’s Office said the conviction was “validly obtained.”
A jury deliberated for just 2½ hours in August 1987 before finding Jacob Duran guilty of first-degree murder and armed robbery in the death of Teofilia Gradi, according to Journal reports. Gradi was robbed and shot to death in her North Valley home just days before Christmas.
Duran’s attorney, Gordon Rahn, said during a Monday hearing in state District Court before Judge Stan Whitaker that he plans to ask the court to vacate the convictions based on the new discoveries. He said Duran always has maintained his innocence.
“He’s feeling some vindication,” Rahn said after the hearing. “He’s told us from the outset, ‘Test everything. It’s not me.’ ”
But Attorney General’s Office spokesman James Hallinan said Duran “has not to date, as suggested by defense counsel, been ‘vindicated.’ ”
“The state will continue to advocate for this validly obtained conviction,” Hallinan said.
Rahn, who is the supervising attorney of the New Mexico Innocence and Justice Project, said the new tests examined blood found under Gradi’s fingernails and hair discovered at the scene. All of the new tests, Rahn said, exclude Duran, 68.
“It basically invalidates the expert testimony provided by two state’s experts,” Rahn said after the status conference. “One who had said that blood found at the crime scene could not exclude Jacob Duran as the source. DNA testing has excluded him as a source of that. The same is true of a hair that was found at the crime scene that the state had said was indistinguishable from Mr. Duran’s hair.”
Rahn said the tests determined that the blood belongs to the victim. The hair is consistent with her profile, though it could belong to someone else in her
maternal lineage.
“The results do not indicate that a third person was responsible for the murder,” Hallinan said in a statement, “but do indicate that at least one individual hair identified at trial as belonging to Jacob Duran was consistent instead with the victim’s DNA profile.”
Assistant Attorney General Anne Kelly wrote in court documents before the new testing was conducted that the state did “not concede that the results would exonerate (Duran) or even be admissible at trial.”
She also said the case against Duran “was largely circumstantial but not completely dependent upon the hair and blood evidence.”
Defense attorneys wrote in court documents that the prosecution relied on unreliable eyewitness identification.
Deputies said at the time that a witness saw a man who looked like Duran jump over Gradi’s fence around the same time she was killed. A serologist also testified that both Duran and Gradi had Type O blood and said the characteristics of the blood found in various places at the scene were consistent with both Duran and Gradi.
The defense must file its motion within the next 30 days, and the state will have 60 days to respond. Whitaker said a hearing on the motion will be scheduled at some point after that.
Duran was sentenced to life plus 10 years and remains imprisoned in Grants. His conviction was upheld by the state Supreme Court.