Death row inmate Jerry Conner has asked Gov. Mike Easley to order a DNA test that he hopes will prove his innocence in the 1990 murder and rape of a mother and daughter.

Conner, 40, is scheduled to be executed May 12. He was sentenced to death in 1991, and again in 1995, for the murders of Minh Rogers and her 16-year-old daughter, Linda. Conner's claim of innocence contradicts what his trial attorney admitted at trial, which was that he killed the two women.

Last week, Gates County Senior Resident Superior Court Judge J. Richard Parker denied Conner's request for the DNA testing of a small amount of sperm found on the teenage girl, who was sexually assaulted. FBI testing of the sperm in 1991 was inconclusive, and Conner's attorneys contend that advanced DNA testing techniques currently available could identify the source.

"What is the harm in allowing a DNA test?" wrote Conner's attorneys, Ken Rose and Mark Kleinschmidt, in a letter to the governor. "We believe that this test will show, one way or another, whether Jerry Conner is guilty of these crimes. Such a test, if permitted now, will not delay Mr. Conner's execution if the results are unfavorable. If the results are favorable, we have no doubt that you and every fair-minded citizen of North Carolina will want to halt the execution."

Rose and Kleinschmidt say in court filings that the only other evidence of the rape was Conner's statement to police, which is unreliable because Conner is borderline mentally retarded.

At the 1995 trial, jurors used the rape as an aggravating factor to support Conner's death sentence.

In the March 22 order, Parker concluded that earlier testing revealed Conner as a possible source of the sperm and other evidence supported his guilt.

"There is no reasonable probability that new testing would eliminate the defendant as Linda's rapist," the judge wrote.

Gates District Attorney Frank Parrish was out of town Wednesday and unavailable for comment, but he opposed the new testing. In court records, Parrish pointed out other evidence that supported Conner's guilt: a footprint in the girl's blood made by Conner's shoe, a shotgun seized from Conner and consistencies between what was found at the crime scene and what Conner told police.

Conner's attorneys are scheduled to discuss their client's clemency petition May 2 with the governor's staff.

If no test is ordered, they say, they will forego a clemency hearing.