Damn the DNA -- the state of Ohio says Jerome Campbell has to die

So it seemed to the jury that heard Jerome Campbell's murder trial. When Cincinnati Police officers seized Campbell's gym shoes, one of them had human blood on it -- the dead man's blood, according to prosecutors.

The best excuse Campbell could come up with? It was his own blood, dripping on the shoe after he'd cut his finger.

That explanation didn't sway the jury. After about three hours of deliberation, jurors unanimously found Campbell guilty of aggravated murder. On May 18, 1989, after the jury recommended Campbell's execution, Hamilton County Judge Thomas Nurre sentenced him to death.

Thirteen years later, law enforcement officials still considered Jerome Campbell's bloodstained, Pony brand gym shoe to be key evidence in the death of John Henry Turner.

With advanced DNA technology leading to the release of condemned prisoners across the country, the state of Ohio announced it would provide testing for its Death Row prisoners -- but only in cases where it might reverse a conviction.

"The results of the test must be outcome determinative," the Ohio Attorney General's guidelines say. "That is, a test result would exonerate the inmate."

When Jerome Campbell's shoe went to Columbus for testing last summer, the laboratory came up with a startling conclusion: The blood on the shoe was Campbell's -- not the murder victim's. Campbell had been telling the truth.

But the real surprise for Campbell and his family came next. Instead of the DNA test leading to his release or at least to a new trial, the Ohio Attorney General's Office reversed itself. The state's new position? The blood on the gym shoe was irrelevant to the case.

Campbell is now scheduled to be poisoned -- the state calls it "lethal injection" -- May 14, a little more than a month from now.

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