MEMPHIS, Nov. 4 (UPI) -- Three death row inmates known as the West Memphis Three have been granted a rare hearing by the Arkansas Supreme Court, authorities said.
Damien Echols, 35, Jessie Misskelley Jr., 34, and Jason Baldin, 33, convicted in a 1994 trial and imprisoned for 17 years for the killing of three 8-year-old boys, have been granted a new evidentiary hearing by the state Supreme Court, the Memphis Commercial Appeal reported Thursday.
Defense teams will have an opportunity to present new DNA evidence and new witness testimony not available at the 1994 trial they say clears Echols and his friends, who were teens when they were arrested.
DNA advancements have linked two hairs at the crime scene to Terry Wayne Hobbs, stepfather of one of the victims, who has denied seeing his stepson or the other two victims the day they disappeared.
New witnesses say they saw Hobbs with all three victims just before they disappeared, the Commercial Appeal reported.
The Supreme Court ruled that while defense attorneys can present evidence not included in the initial trial, so can prosecutors.
This includes various confessions by Misskelley blaming Echols as the ringleader of a satanic cult who tortured and killed the children for power.
