In arguments before the Virginia Supreme Court in Richmond,...

In arguments before the Virginia Supreme Court in Richmond, a group of newspapers joined with an inmate-aid organization and asked the state's highest court to allow DNA testing that could show whether a convicted killer executed a decade ago was, in fact, guilty.
A lawyer representing the Boston Globe, The Washington Post, and other newspapers, and another lawyer representing Centurion Ministries Inc., the inmate-aid group, told the justices that allowing DNA testing of preserved semen samples from the Roger Keith Coleman case would give the public a rare and important opportunity to test the accuracy of the death penalty system. The system has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years as more than 100 death-row inmates have been exonerated and released from prison based on DNA evidence since the resumption of executions in the US in 1977.
''This court has an historic opportunity to let the public glean this information,'' said Margaret Stone, the lawyer representing the newspapers.
Katherine Baldwin, a senior assistant attorney general, told the justices that the newspapers and Centurion Ministries want something far more than access. ''They're asking you to turn [the evidence] over to them so they can manipulate it, alter it, and ultimately destroy it,'' Baldwin said. ''They have no standing to make this request. They present no precedent to support their case.''
The justices did not issue a ruling and may not for several weeks.
Roger Keith Coleman was executed in 1992 for the rape and murder of his sister-in-law, Wanda Fay McCoy, 11 years earlier. He never admitted guilt and appeared on the cover of Time magazine portrayed as a condemned man who might be innocent.
Some death penalty opponents see the Coleman case as a key opportunity to test whether the well-chronicled flaws in the judicial system have allowed innocent people to be executed. A finding that supports Coleman's guilt could, on the other hand, restore public faith in capital punishment.