Judge Denies DNA Testing in Old Juneau Murder

A Juneau judge has denied post-conviction DNA testing in a three-decade old double murder.

KTOO reports Superior Court Judge William Carey issued the order in the Newton Lambert case.

Newton Lambert was convicted in 1983 in the slaying of Anne Benolken and acquitted of killing James Benolken. Another man also was acquitted in the deaths.

There were multiple suspects in the murders. At a January hearing for oral arguments for DNA testing, public defender Michael Jude Pate said the DNA of blood found on James Benolken's clothes would show the presence of other suspects, not of his client.

But Carey says there were problems in the chain of command of the evidence. And since Lambert was convicted, there wasn't a reasonable probability that he didn't commit her murder.