The state's highest criminal court has refused to reconsider its ruling reversing a trial court judge's decision that would have allowed additional DNA testing of evidence a condemned killer contends could show he's not responsible for the slaying of suburban Houston college student in 1999.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, without comment Wednesday, refused to rehear arguments from 44-year-old death row inmate Larry Swearingen.
The court last October for a second time overturned a Montgomery County judge's decision permitting the new tests.
Swearingen's attorneys contend the test results could change the outcome of his trial for the abduction, rape and strangling of 19-year-old Melissa Trotter.
Her body was found in January 1999 in the Sam Houston National Forest nearly a month after she disappeared from a Conroe college.
