Dallas Man Exonerated After 27 Years in Prison

[flashl]

Source: NPR

James Lee Woodard walked out of a Texas prison last week after 27 years behind bars. The state now agrees that Woodard was wrongfully convicted in 1981 of killing a girl he had been dating.

Woodard is the 17th man from Dallas to be exonerated by DNA evidence. Nearly all are black. And the district attorney's office is predicting that Woodard won't be the last.

...

Watkins, Texas' first African-American district attorney, says he saw plenty of prosecutorial abuse when he was on the other side as a defense attorney. Now that he's running the DA's office, he has completely changed the culture.

"It's ruining lives," Watkins says. "Not only is it ruining defendants' lives, but the victim. Because if you just put someone in jail because it's easy, the person that actually committed the crime is still out there, and is still committing crime. I believe that the failures of the DAs have really added to the criminal problem we have in Texas."

NPR

Read more: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90172724

---

And, 'we' are about to start another round of executions.

[stillcool]

1. 27 years.

some justice.

[msanthrope]

2. Could be titled "Why the 'Wade' in Roe v. Wade was such

a hypocritical douchebag."

Sanctity of life, indeed....asswipe is resonsible for so many of these wrongful convictions....

17 people exonerated, out of 40 re-examnied.....

[bluebellbaby]

3. This why I don't agree with the death penalty...may the people that convicted him

spend 27 years in jail...now that's justice...

[kath]

4. Jeebus- Wade was "known to have actually boasted about convicting innocent people"

Excellent interview with current Dallas Co. DA Craig Watkins here:
http://www.reason.com/news/printer/125596.html

An excerpt:
reason: You talk about the mindset of winning convictions at all costs. The legendary law-and-order Dallas prosecutor Henry Wade, who held the job you now hold for many, many years, embodied that philosophy. He’s known to have actually boasted about convicting innocent people—that convincing a jury to put an innocent man in jail proved his prowess as a prosecutor.

Watkins: Oh yeah, it was a badge of honor at the time—to knowingly convict someone that wasn’t guilty. It’s widely known among defense attorneys and prosecutors from that era. We had to come in clean out all the remnants of that older way of thinking.

reason: It’s hard to imagine anyone opposing what you’re doing—seeking out and freeing the wrongfully convicted. Do you have critics?

Watkins: We’re encountering a lot of criticism right now. I think a lot of it is motivated by political party. The Republicans are losing power in Dallas County, and they’re trying to regain it. So they’re doing whatever they can, even making the political mistake of attacking the work we’re doing on wrongful convictions.

reason: What possible arguments could they make against freeing innocent people?

Watkins: Initially, their argument was that it’s not the role of a prosecutor to look for bad convictions—that that’s the role of a defense attorney. But that didn’t work very well for them. And it’s wrong. Both the criminal code of the state of Texas and the American Bar Association’s code clearly state that the job of a prosecutor is to seek justice. That means if a person is guilty, you try to convict him. If he’s not, you don’t. And if you have reason to believe someone has been wrongly convicted, you have a responsibility to fix that.

Their new argument is, “Is this cost effective?” Is this unit we’ve created a net benefit for Dallas County? I guess my response to that is that if we find even one more person who has been wrongly convicted, then yes, it is cost effective. So I think their arguments are off base. And they’re going to have a hard time convincing the public that what we’re doing isn’t necessary.

[defendandprotect]

5. It was murder . . . he could have been on death row . . . !!! Who actually did the crime???

Presumably that person has been out there now for 27 years . . . !!!

Unfortunately, while citizens are always anxious to be protected from the "murderer" we have to
understand the pressure that puts the police under to produce a suspect and close the case!

HOWEVER, that so many of these false convictions are "blacks" . . . I would say there are some
strong prejudices in play here -- if not rampant racism!

[Archae]

6. Something no one has brought up...

Wade himself has died.

But how many of those corrupt prosecutors are still living?
And can anything be done to them?

At the very least, I'd like to hear their lame excuses...

[flashl]

7. Nothing stops the horror of the killing machine in the death belt ...

While following dp in the death belt, I learn, some of those same prosecutors may be judges who are ruling on their own cases. Its more than the prosecutors or those prosecutors who may now be judges.

There have been significant exposes in recent years revealing total disregard for the rule of law within the Texas criminal justice system. Several exposes, under 'normal' conditions should have caused the entire system to collapse.

For instance, the 'discovery' of more than 200 boxes of evidence in a warehouse from cases spanning about 25+ years or exposing crime labs and forensic specialists tailoring information for prosecutors.

[TechBear_Seattle]

8. He's damned lucky he wasn't murdered by the state

Explain to me again how the death penalty is a good thing.

[saigon68]

9. Well the Cowardly Chimpanzee loves the death penalty

He achieves arousal when he thinks of the power he has to kill some one

[TechBear_Seattle]

10. Now, explain why so many here in DU have the same reaction

Do a search for "death penalty" and you will find a great many people here in DU who think that allowing the state to murder people will magically make bad things stop happening.

[saigon68]

11. Can't explain it

They certainly aren't representatives of the Religion my father taught me

<Stands Back, Hangs head in Disgust>

[kath]

12. "Why Do We Kill People Who Kill People to Show That Killing People Is Wrong?"

one of my favorite bumper stickers.