distant memory until donald zelenka confronted her with it nearly 25 years later. i was like, you know what? you opened the door. i m walking through it. let s do this. i m going to tell it all. not just the part you want to hear. the judge in the case visibly disgusted by zelenka s tactic disallowed the deposition. diana could continue her fight for elmore s life. at elmore s trial, the prosecutor had claimed that negroid hair had been found on the victim s body. when the defense petitioned to see the air, it had gone missing. now 16 years later, the hair suddenly turned up. the prosecution has an obligation to turn over to the defense anything which is favorable. in this case, they didn t do it at the time of trial. as it turns out, none of the hairs were negroid at all. they were all caucasian hair, and they did not belong to mr. elmore. that should be sufficient to warrant a new trial.
threw it at john blume. and he s what the hell is the matter with you? john blume had assigned elmore s case to diana as an intern. i was stunned. i had really expected that he would grant relief because they had presented a compelling case of mr. elmore s innocence. diana was discovering that proving mr. elmore s innocence was not enough. to get a new trial, elmore s team would need to prove that elmore s constitutional rights had been violated. a person can be innocent but as long as they get a fair trial, that s all they re entitled to. well, that begs the question. is it a fair trial if somebody has lied? diana s team immediately appealed the judge s decision to the south carolina supreme court. in the meantime, the state prosecutor, donald zelenka had discovered that diana had a secret that if exposed to destroy her career and damage
while edward lee elmore sat on death row waiting for his appeal to move forward, diana holt took on other death penalty cases. in one she was able to get a last-minute stay of execution over the objections of the assistant attorney general. he dug through her past looking for anything to get her off the case. in april 2000, he called her to a deposition. it was at the attorney general s office. there were six attorneys across the table from me and all of them lined up like this. looking. don zelenka asked, have you ever done anything in the course of your life that would reflect poorly on the legal profession?
prevailing were very slight. in yet another face-off with donald zelenka, the fourth circuit s three-judge panel heard oral arguments in september of 2010, and remarkably, they came down hard on zelenka. the time of death, we were locking it down because the defendant was saying at 9:30. locking down the time of death based on his alibi. i thought you locked down time of death by science. the judges have some moral righteous indignation in their voices and what they re saying. you put in evidence there was hairs found on the bed there was a big part of the conviction? yes, it was. not one photograph was taken of the bed where these hairs were supposed to be. does that make sense? well, i don t know. do you think that makes a difference now that we know he is mentally retarded? no, not at all. in this case, this is just a constellation of problems. even though the judges seem to be raising some serious questions, i came out of the argument feeling negative about
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