Damien Wayne Echols v. State of Arkansas

Summary

The court reversed the denial of Echols’s motion for a new trial under the Arkansas DNA testing statutes and remanded for an evidentiary hearing. It held that testing results excluding a petitioner as the source of biological evidence are not “inconclusive” merely because they do not themselves establish actual innocence, and that the court must consider all inculpatory and exculpatory evidence in deciding whether a new trial would result in acquittal. The court also held that the circuit court applied incorrect legal standards and improperly denied a hearing.