DNA test expected to free Texas inmate

[Richard D]

Source: AP

DALLAS - Charles Chatman said throughout his 26 years in prison that he never raped the woman who lived five houses down from him. Now 47, Chatman is expected to win his freedom Thursday on the basis of new DNA testing that lawyers say proves his innocence and adds to Dallas County's nationally unmatched number of wrongfully convicted inmates.

"I'm bitter. I'm angry," Chatman told The Associated Press during what was expected to be his last night in jail Wednesday. "But I'm not angry or bitter to the point where I want to hurt anyone or get revenge."

If released on bond at a Thursday court hearing as expected, Chatman will become the 15th inmate from Dallas County since 2001 to be freed by DNA testing. That is more than any other county nationwide, said Natalie Roetzel of the Innocence Project of Texas, an organization of vounteers who investigate claims of wrongful conviction.

Texas leads the country in prisoners freed by DNA testing. Including Chatman, the state will have released at least 30 wrongfully convicted inmates since 2001, according to the Innocence Project.

Read more: http://tinyurl.com/2aqqys

[zanne]

1. I'm glad he's being honest about how he feels.

He should be angry. And bitter. I just hate it when this happens and the former inmate acts as if it was just a little mistake.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

2. 26 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit

I'd be bitter and angry also.

I cannot imagine what his life has been like for the past 26 years. All the while knowing he was innocent of the crime he'd been convicted of committing.

[noel adamson]

3. I think just a small percentage of wrongfully convicted people get exonerated

Considering two factors;

Those convicted of more serious crimes generally are allowed more vigorous defense so it seems likely that people there might be a higher percentage of false convictions for lessor crimes and in many, if not most, cases there is no DNA containing evidence to be tested, that being the primary vehicle of exoneration. Add to those the fact that the innocence project, which has freed over 200 wrongfully convicted people so far, is limited in scope.

"Exonerated" and "After Innocence" are two documentaries about this which are very illuminating.

Also consider that every time some distorted jurisdiction railroads someone, ruining their lives and impacting the lives of those close to them, they are also leaving actual perpetrators to continue perpetrating crimes.

Personally I attribute this to the bellicose bullies that dominate our country and who are generally in the Republican Party and are motivated entirely by prejudice, greed and superficial appearance. Why, if people from Saudi Arabia who lived in Afghanistan attacked us they would likely just go out and get someone they had some history with and who had something they wanted like, oh, say Iraq.

[ooglymoogly]

4. One more sacrificial lamb (usual suspect) of the ruthless Texas judiciary

may just fly past the cuckoo's nest.

[MannyGoldstein]

7. Texas - The Saudi Arabia Of America

In so many ways...

[ooglymoogly]

15. Sadly true...or Texas, the new Saudi America.

[flashl]

5. DNA tests get man freed after 27 years

Charles Chatman, 47, was released on his recognizance after serving nearly 27 years of a 99-year sentence. He was freed on the basis of new DNA testing that lawyers say proves his innocence and adds to Dallas County's nationally unmatched number of wrongfully convicted inmates.

Read Full Text

[xchrom]

6. i'm angry and bitter for him. nt

[melody]

8. Golly, what a surprise -- he's black n/t

[Acadia Blue]

9. In the past Texas has not freed innocent people who had proof

that they were innocent. Imho it is the worse state in the USA, and I try not to even fly over it.

[struggle4progress]

10. 15th Dallas County Inmate Since ’01 Is Freed by DNA (NYT)

By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
Published: January 4, 2008

HOUSTON — After nearly 27 years in prison for a rape he did not commit, Charles Chatman walked free on Thursday, the 15th wrongfully convicted prisoner in Dallas County to be exonerated by DNA testing since 2001.

The innocence claims of seven other Dallas-area prisoners are pending, thanks in large part to a crime laboratory that, unlike others in Texas, has preserved evidence going back as long as three decades ...

Mr. Chatman, who had been locked up since age 20, said he had lost three chances for release by insisting to the Parole Board, “I never committed the crime.” ...

“People look at Dallas County as an anomaly,” <District Attorney Craig Watkins> said. “We’re not. We just have the DNA.” He said his office had reviewed 80 other claims of wrongful conviction and submitted seven cases for tests ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/04/us/04dna.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Lesson: Require em to save the evidence

[pop goes the weasel]

11. Dallas County not an anomaly?

I hate to think it was typical, but maybe it was. Dallas County in the 1980s had this as instructions to prosecutors for choosing a jury:

"You are looking for a strong, stable individual who believes that defendants are different from them in kind". It warned against selecting jurors from minority races, people with "physical afflictions" and Jews, on the grounds that they "usually empathize with the accused".

<http://www.fdp.dk/uk/racism.php>

[struggle4progress]

13. Those dreadful jury instructions really capture the attitude of the Dallas establishment

which always favored folks like Cheney.

But of course the DA isn't likely to gather any political points for re-election by saying Here in Dallas, there's a long history of rightwing asshole lynch law

And unfortunately there are plenty of jurisdictions around the country that destroyed old evidence as soon as inmates began to make noises about filing DNA-based challenges -- claiming that such challenges would if successful decrease public confidence in the criminal justice system

[tuckessee]

12. Now the prosecuting atty. should serve 26 years in jail.

Too often we see that somewhere in the cop-prosecuter nexus someone knew or should have known these wrongfully convicted people were innocent.

Evidence is ignored, misrepresented & even fabricated in the rush to convict.

This kind of sh*t would be as rare as hen's teeth if there was some kind of punishment for those who knowingly or incompetently wrongfully convict.

[Sultana]

14. 26 years!

What is the standard sentencing (years in prison) for rape?

I hate cases like this, they took his life from and they should pay.:grr: