Two men were jailed for years in Virginia for rapes that they did not commit, according to new tests of DNA evidence ordered by Virginia Governor Mark Warner.
The Washington Post reports that one of the wrongly convicted men served 20 years in prison. The Post and Warner's office didn't identify the two men, saying that they had been released from prison and did not want publicity.
In one of the two cases-the Post doesn't say which-the DNA test identifies the actual rapist.
Prosecutors in both cases have asked Warner to pardon the two men, and Warner says his office will expedite the pardon applications.
Way down in the article, the Post points out that Warner has spent three years "pondering" whether to order similar DNA testing on evidence against Roger Keith Coleman, who Virginia put to death in 1992. There have been huge questions about whether Coleman actually committed the rape and murder he was executed for, and Virginia courts refused to hear the newly discovered evidence.
Good for Warner for ordering the DNA tests that exonerated the two unidentified men who will now (hopefully) be pardoned. But what argument could anybody possibly make not to test the evidence in Coleman's case?