Definitive proof? I think not.

On Feb. 4, 1983, Corpus Christi convenience store clerk Wanda Lopez was stabbed to death with an 8-inch buck knife. The police found Carlos DeLuna, a paroled repeat felon, hiding under a truck a few blocks away, and several witnesses told police he looked like the killer. DeLuna always maintained that he didn't do it, but waited until right before his trial to pin the blame on Carlos Hernandez. The lead prosecutor dismissed DeLuna's claim. DeLuna was executed in 1989.

A study by a Columbia University project now says it has definitive proof that Carlos DeLuna was innocent. My initial impressions were if he was innocent, why was he hiding and how did he know anything was even going on. So what is the definitive proof we're given 29 years after the fact?

Detectives overlooked or ignored a discarded cigarette butt, discarded chewing gum, a comb and shoe prints "probably" left by the killer. Probably, but maybe not. Remember, DNA testing was not being done in 1983, so a piece of chewing gum and a cigarette butt would have been of little evidentiary value. That's not proof. DeLuna was identified by an "uncertain" witness at the crime scene. Proof? Maybe not proof that he did it, but certainly not proof that he didn't. After all, the witness thought it more likely he was the one he had seen than that he wasn't. There was no blood found on DeLuna. The presence of blood would prove that he was at the scene, but the absence of blood is not proof that he wasn't. 

Carlos Hernandez did exist -- in fact, there are more than 600 people named Carlos Hernandez in the southern tier of border states alone. Saying it was that other Carlos -- Carlos Hernandez who did it -- is akin to saying that it was that other John -- John Smith who did it. However, at least one Carlos Hernandez was a really bad man with a fondness for buck knives. And he claimed that he did kill the woman. Hernandez died in prison in 1999, so do you suppose he had read reports of the DeLuna trial and just decided to make himself more intimidating to the other inmates? And anyway, if Carlos DeLuna was not involved in this slaying, how did he know Carlos Hernandez did it? Definitive proof of DeLuna's innocence? Far from it.

If they want to convince me an innocent man was executed, they'll have to do better than pulling up a decades old case with highly questionable exculpatory "evidence" and a dead alleged perpetrator.

http://theweek.com/article/index/228025/the-carlos-deluna-case-definitive-proof-that-texas-executed-an-innocent-man