Credit: BOB BROWN/RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH

Thomas E. Haynesworth at a December 2011 press conference with Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and Shawn Armbrust of the Mid Atlantic Innocence Project.

Prompted by DNA testing in recent years, authorities in Norfolk and Carroll County are investigating several possible, decades-old wrongful convictions.

Virginia Department of Forensic Science has disclosed DNA test results for more than 70 persons where testing of biological evidence discovered in forensic case files from 1973 to 1988, failed to identify the convicted person.

The test reports were released in response to Freedom of Information Act requests from the media and the Innocence Project made possible -- as of July 1 -- by special legislation passed by the Virginia General Assembly this year.

Failure to identify a convicted persons DNA in evidence, primarily blood and semen, can be consistent with and even prove innocence but may mean nothing.

However, as permitted by the legislation, the department said two Commonwealths attorneys are withholding four reports involving five people four in Norfolk and one in Carroll County -- deemed critical to ongoing criminal investigations.

Amanda M. Howie, a spokeswoman for Gregory D. Underwood, the Norfolk Commonwealths attorney, said that of 11 reports sent to Norfolk for consideration, they objected to the release of four concerning 3 individuals and 2 cases.

Howie wrote in an email that, Our objection is appropriate as our legal review of the original circumstances of each case associated with the (reports) is still ongoing.

She said that in every case sent to her office, a thorough, routine process is followed to determine what, if any, legal impact the testing and resulting (report) has on the case.

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DNA tests prompt review of 5 possible wrongful convictions