They didn't do it: Convicting the innocent; 05/27/08
BUFFALO NEWS: You don't have to be involved in anything wrong to have this happen to you. I had never been arrested for so much as a violation. If it happened to me, it can happen to any of you. It can happen to your son or daughter. It can happen to your best friend, or it can happen to your spouse. Jeffrey Deskovic, speaking to a Buffalo audience last year about his wrongful 1991 conviction for raping and murdering a classmate in Peekskill.
Support grows for state innocence commission; 5/24/2008
CALLER-TIMES: Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson thinks the idea of an innocence commission to investigate wrongful convictions is a good one. "What better way to spend public dollars than to make sure the innocent don't go to jail?" said Jefferson. The chief justice is right. Sending an innocent person to prison undermines the very essence of our notion of justice. Jefferson is just one of a number of state legal and political leaders who are beginning to support the creation of an innocence commission. At least five other states have such commissions.
Correcting flaws; 5/19/2008
STAR-TELEGRAM: The numbers tell the story: 33 Texas inmates found through DNA testing to be not guilty of the crimes for which they were convicted. 17 men convicted in Dallas County alone released after being exonerated. 427 years served in prison by the wrong defendants while the real perpetrators weren't held accountable. Through this year, the state will have paid about $8.5 million to 45 wrongly convicted individuals since 2001, the Texas comptroller says.
Dumb on crime means broken lives; 5/17/2008
AMERICAN-STATESMAN: Something is terribly wrong with the Texas justice system, which has sent scores of innocent people to prison for crimes committed by others. It is especially tragic that Texas has the capability and technology to prevent (or discover) errors that lead to wrongful convictions but lacks the leadership and will to use it. What other conclusion can be drawn in the face of the dozens of DNA exonerations - now totaling 33 - of wrongfully convicted people who languished in Texas prisons for years, some nearly three decades.
Public defender system must be up to the job; 5/16/2008
ISLAND PACKET: Our justice system is only as good as its ability to provide good legal counsel for those who can't afford it. But that doesn't mean we have to throw good money after bad trying to accomplish that. An overhaul of the public defender system in South Carolina should provide better representation and better accountability to the people picking up the tab -- the state's taxpayers. Last year, lawmakers enacted the S.C. Indigent Defense Act, which did away with a 30-year-old system of 39 nonprofit agencies staffed by part-time attorneys.
Free and starting over; 5/13/2008
CNN VIDEO: Cleared by DNA after 27 years in prison, James Woodard starts over. Ed Lavandera reports.
Editorial: State needs innocence commission; 5/11/2008
DALLAS MORNING NEWS: A poignant drama unfolded in the state Capitol last week that should have been witnessed by all Texans. Nine men at a head table in the Senate chamber looked out at a sea of faces and shared stories of lost freedom. Unjustly convicted in Texas courts, each was locked away in prison until the truth of his innocence was established, most of them through DNA tests.
Nine who were wrongfully convicted plead for reform; 5/8/2008
HOUSTON CHRONICLE: Nine wrongfully convicted men who spent a collective 148 years in Texas prisons met with a select group of prosecutors, judges and police chiefs in the Senate chamber Thursday to urge the state to establish a commission to investigate claims of innocence. "I'm crying out for mercy today for someone who may still be in prison," said James Curtis Giles, who served 10 years in prison for rape before DNA testing proved him innocent. State Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, has been leading the effort to have an "innocence commission" formed in Texas.
Wrongly convicted gather at Texas Capitol to share stories; 5/8/2008
HOUSTON CHRONICLE: One by one, nine wrongly convicted men stood up on the floor of the Texas Senate on Thursday to explain how innocent men ended up in prison and how to prevent it from happening again. "I'm here to tell you I lost everything. I am still hurting. I am still broken," said James Giles, who spent 10 years in prison for a rape he did not commit. "We can do better in the justice system. The system failed all of us." A week after a man who spent 27 years in prison became the 18th Dallas County man since 2001 to have his conviction tossed aside after DNA testing, state officials and men who lost years of their lives behind bars met in the Capitol to discuss what they said was Texas' "disturbing number of wrongful convictions."
Exonerated inmates urge criminal justice changes in Texas; 5/9/2008
STAR TELEGRAM: When Billy Smith and James Giles were languishing in Texas prisons for crimes they knew they did not commit, they never dreamed that one day they would be standing in the state Senate chamber pleading for reforms. But Smith and Giles were among nine exonerated men who spoke Thursday at a forum called to examine underlying causes of Texas' wrongful convictions and what can be done to prevent them. "You have the power. You have the pen," Smith told the assembled legislators, judges, prosecutors and police chiefs.
Dallas County district attorney wants unethical prosecutors punished; 5/4/2008
DALLAS MORNING NEWS: The Dallas County district attorney who has built a national reputation on freeing the wrongfully convicted says prosecutors who intentionally withhold evidence should themselves face harsh sanctions – possibly even jail time. "Something should be done," said Craig Watkins, whose jurisdiction leads the nation in the number of DNA exonerations. "If the harm is a great harm, yes, it should be criminalized." Wrongful convictions, nearly half of them involving prosecutorial misconduct, have cost Texas taxpayers $8.6 million in compensation since 2001, according to state comptroller records obtained by The Dallas Morning News. Dallas County accounts for about one-third of that.