10/19/09

BOISE, Idaho (AP) _ The Idaho Supreme Court has thrown out an
appeal from death row inmate Paul Ezra Rhoades, saying that a DNA
report didn't cast doubt on the reliability of his conviction.

Rhoades was sentenced to death for two murders and life in
prison for a third in three separate cases in 1988. The high court
ruling focused only on the murder of Idaho Falls special education
teacher Susan Michelbacher, who was kidnapped, raped and killed in
1987.

Rhoades said he was actually innocent of the crime because one
of the three DNA samples taken from Michelbacher's body allegedly
didn't belong to him. But the high court pointed out that the claim
came too late under state appeal deadlines, and that Rhoades' own
expert acknowledged that the DNA in the third sample may have
actually belonged to the victim, not another attacker.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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