They included Gerald (Gerry) Zerkin, who defended Earl Washington, an innocent man who had been on death row for nearly twenty years after being convicted of raping and killing a woman in Culpeper, Virginia, in 1982. Washington, who has an IQ of 69, was coerced into making a false confession by police. Initial forensic testing revealed that the assailant’s blood was marked by a rare plasma protein. After it was determined Washington didn’t carry that protein, the state altered its forensic report to make it appear as if the tests to identify the protein were “inconclusive.”
