Another Exoneration
This time, in Ohio, though the man is still a few steps from being released.
And there may be more on the way.
McClendon's case was highlighted in "Test of Convictions," a five-day series in January that exposed flaws in Ohio's prisoner DNA-testing program and identified 30 cases that were prime candidates for testing.
The Dispatch built files on the more than 300 prisoners who applied for testing, almost all of whom had previously been denied. The newspaper re-examined them with the Ohio Innocence Project's team of professors and law students.
DNA Diagnostics Center, a Cincinnati-area lab, volunteered to test the cases free. Prosecutors and judges have since granted testing in 15 cases, more than had been tested in the five-year history of the program.
McClendon's is the first result.
