Texan declared innocent after 30 years in prison

Here's the permanent link. Sorry about that.

http://www.timesdaily.com/arti...10104/APA/1101040557

Texas seems to be the state where the most of these kinds of cases are found.

Texas is also the state that most often uses the death penalty.

If they don't get it right on sentencing, how many cases do they have where they have fried innocent persons?

There are way too many elected district attorneys in this country who have sent far too many people to prison for crimes they did not commit. They allow the political value of their "tough on crime" reputation to trump their duty to see that justice is done.

Think it can't happen in Alabama? Read about the "Choctaw Three."

http://www.justicedenied.org/choctawthree.htm

One of the biggest problems is bad "eye witness" identification in a lot of these cases. A bunch more are due to faulty forensic testing, especially in Texas. The Houston lab was at one time notorious for screwing up and/or falsifying DNA results. Check out the Innocence Project website for some pretty staggering statistics on wrongful conviction.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/

As a believer in the death penalty. Things like this make you wonder.

This is so sad that one would serve 30 years of his life in prison for a crime he did not comit. Something is wrong with this picture.

Read John Gresham's new book, The Confession, about death row justice in Texas. It's chilling, and I suspect somewhat true.

quote:

Originally posted by lawguy07:
One of the biggest problems is bad "eye witness" identification in a lot of these cases. A bunch more are due to faulty forensic testing, especially in Texas. The Houston lab was at one time notorious for screwing up and/or falsifying DNA results. Check out the Innocence Project website for some pretty staggering statistics on wrongful conviction.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/

Texas does appear to be a hotspot for this sort of thing. It really does make you wonder though. I'm sure it happens more times than anyone cares to admit and not just in Texas. Those are indeed some staggering statistics when you look at the big picture.

One possible solution to this problem is to transfer to the wrongly convicted individual the District Attorney's retirement pension. Then we would truly see if the DA stands behind the criminal charge or not. District Attorneys are enthusiastic about "Sending a Message" when they make their closing arguments to Juries. Perhaps if their retirement hung in the balance Society could send a message to the Prosecutors.