The First Innocent Man

The man in the mugshot is Randall Dale Adams, the subject of Eroll Morris' great documentary The Thin Blue Line.  Randall Dale Adams was one of the first Texas death row inmates to be exonerated.  Adams' exoneration for killing a police officer during a traffic stop predated the innocence project and the advent of DNA technology.  It was based on the astonishing efforts of a handful of people including Morris who questioned the illogical sequence of facts and proffered testimony in the case.  In exonerating Adams, Morris et al. demonstrated that highly motivated law enforcement will massage the evidence and testimony to put an innocent man on death row when the underlying crime involves a cop killing.  Big surprise, right?  The following is an excerpt from the Dallas Observer's obituary notice: 

"It's an Everyman's story. It's the story of someone slipping through the cracks -- if you like, a nonfiction Twilight Zone episode." That was filmmaker Errol Morris talking, in 1988, about his documentary The Thin Blue Line -- otherwise known as the film that proved Randall Dale Adams did not kill Dallas Police officer Robert Wood in 1976, despite his having been convicted of the crime and sentenced to die in '77.

Errol Morris did not come to Dallas in 1985 to spring Adams; he didn't even know who he was. The filmmaker had arrived instead to profile Dr. James Grigson, the local psychiatrist known as "Dr. Death," because his expert testimony on behalf of the District Attorney's Office all but guaranteed a death sentence. That's what Adams received, thanks to Grigson, who told the jury he'd kill again if ever released. But Randall told the director: "I'm innocent." Well, of course he was; who on Death Row isn't? But Morris looked into it: "History, properly considered, is a mystery," the director told me in '04 when speaking about The Thin Blue Line. And he discovered: Adams wasn't lying. This is what we wrote in 2007 in summation:

The documentary alleged that [Dallas County District Attorney Henry] Wade's first assistant, Doug Mulder, withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense. Adams' attorney maintained Mulder manipulated key witnesses. Mulder denied that and said he'd simply "forgotten" to turn over a witness statement pointing to another man. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ordered Dallas County to grant a new trial, and then-District Attorney John Vance dropped the charges.

The real cop-killer, David Harris, told the Dallas Times Herald and District Court Judge Larry Baraka shortly after the film's release that he'd lied about Adams's involvement in the shooting. It took a while for D.A. John Vance to come around, but, finally, Adams was released in the spring of '89. Two years later Adams wrote a book about his case in 1991, but finally left Texas a few years later to lead "a quiet life in Columbus, Ohio." And that is where he died in October, at the age of 61. Few knew of his quiet farewell till an obit appeared in yesterday's paper, buried in the Metro section; the Associated Press picks up the tale today.

Adams wasn't the first whose wrongful conviction in Dallas County became national news; before Randall Dale Adams, Errol Morris and The Thin Blue Line, there was Lenell Jeter, Morley Safer and 60 Minutes. And God know he wouldn't be the last, as the parade of exonerees from the Dallas County courthouse reminds every few months. But as Adams's longtime attorney -- Randy Schaffer of Houston, who took the case pro bono in '82 -- tells the AP: "Within the context of the modern criminal justice system as we know it, he was the first innocent man, the first death row inmate exonerated based on innocence, even though in the court's opinion he was exonerated on the state's use of false testimony."
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I vividly remember watching Morris' documentary and being awe struck by the horror story at the heart of Morris' film.  It forever changed my view of the death penalty.

For proof that innocent men die in Texas (and elsewhere) look no further than the Bad Lawyer posts on the Cameron Todd Willingham case.  Willingham was murdered by Texas.  Governor Rick Perry, an assessory to the official killing, will be haunted by the spectre of the execution of Willingham, an Op-Ed at the New York Times claimed over the weekend.  Good.

What If Jesus Were Tried Under Texas' Death Penalty Law?

The Dallas Morning News has an intriguing interview with law professor and former federal prosecutor, Mark Osler (pic) who poses the question, What if Jesus were prosecuted under the Texas Death Penalty statute?

Bearing in mind that actual innocence is not an obstacle to death in the Big T, what chance would Jesus have?

Editor, Michael Landuaer does an awesome job of confronting the issue of this very bizarre practice in this death-wish region of our Country.  Professor Osler is a very brave man, to recontextualize the debate in such a startling perspective.  Maybe he will turn more than a few hearts. 

You can read the interview at the link.

No Punishment for Judge Keller, Remember: Oops the Clerk's Office Closes at 5 Sharp Even for Death Row Inmates

We all remember presiding Texas Judge "Killer" Keller who famously refused to respond or hold open the Clerk of Courts office in the case of Michael Richard who was put to death that night in Texas two years ago.  His appellate attorney who had had major technical difficulties printing needed documents called Judge Keller at 4:45, while enroute to file legal papers that might have stayed his execution.  On the stand, in her judicial disciplinary trial, Keller testified she would have done nothing differently. 



Late yesterday afternoon, the Dallas Morning News reported at their website that the Judge who presided over her Judicial ethics matter, believes that Judge Keller should receive no sanction, not even a reprimand, because her public humiliation has "been enough."  Huh?  Are you kidding us?

Let's see, deny due process, in Texas, inmate dies--that'll be no sanction. 

Govenor Perry Won't Issue a Posthumous Pardon For An Innocent Man

It must gall the shit out of Govenor Rick Perry that he has to hear this bullshit about posthumous pardons of innocent inmates.  I mean afterall doesn't the Texas Attorney General have anything better to do than to stir the pot?

The Dallas Morning News has this report about the case of Timothy Cole who went to prison in Texas and died there for a crime he didn't commit.  Cole's family wants their loved-one pardoned posthumously and the Govenor says he won't even think about it because of a 45 year old opinion from the AG's office.  Now the current AG Abbott, says that the law has evolved (even in Texas?!)

This is from Christy Hope's excellent look at the controversy:

"Cole was the first person in Texas exonerated by DNA evidence posthumously.  A state court judge, looking DNA evidence and another inmate’s confession, found conclusively that Cole did not commit the 1985 rape for which he was convicted. He was a student in Lubbock at the time. Cole, who grew up in Fort Worth where most of his family still lives, died of asthma in prison in 1999.

'It’s the final hurdle in a marathon race that we’ve been in for a quarter century to clear Tim’s name,' his brother Cory Sessions said. His family, with the court’s ruling of innocence, was already eligible for state recompense, which amounts to just over $1 million based on his 13 years of wrongful incarceration.  Sessions said that the family hasn’t put in a claim for the money yet because there was still work to be done. 'That’s not what we were after,' he said.  In letters Cole wrote to family members from prison, he repeated that he wanted three things: vindication, exoneration and a full pardon.  'Tim’s name was soiled by the state and we want it cleaned by the state,' Sessions said."

And Govenor Perry won't do it.  Consistent. Consistently a shithead.

Another version of the story is at USA Today.

Texas-By-God!

Students in Abilene, Texas and other school districts throughout Texas are required to Pledge Allegiance to the Flag and (need I even say this?) in Texas the law requires them to include the phrase UNDER GOD.  Now setting aside the fact that the Govenor of Texas and much of its population is decidedly pro-secessionist it's mighty thoughtful of the Texas legislature to enact this measure.  And don't the kids look wonderful in the accompanying pic?

But guess what, the "under God" language was added by the Texas legislators way back in 2007.  You know it's just this sort of demagoguery that lawsuits are made, and sure enough a Dallas couple is suing over the separation of church and state implications in the Pledge.  Here's the thing, I don't give a damn.  But why?  Why do legislators do this to the tax payers of their respective states?  Invite lawsuits over some pathetic patriotic bull?  Oh and let's mix religion into the mix.  Ridiculous.

Here's my suggestion for the local media, go, randomly put the law makers on camera who enacted this legislation and ask them to recite the pledge by heart.  Go ahead, I guarantee pure comedy.

For more:  http://www.reporternews.com/news/2009/dec/04/state-pledge-still-includes-under-god-n-suit-in/

Texas Killed Bobby Wayne Woods, Last Night

Texas killed Bobby Wayne Woods, last night.

James C. McKinley had an excellent piece in this morning's NYT setting out the so-called justification for killing the mentally impaired in Texas.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/04/us/04execute.html?_r=1&ref=us

and, see:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/selective-empathy/?hp

Let's see we Pardon the Turkey, we kill the Retard

Texas is planning to kill a mentally-defective (IQ "hovers" around 70) death row inmate for the holiday season.




This pathetic Texas inmate's attorney blew all of his appellate options and rights; so Bobby Wayne Wood's only prayer is clemency from Gov. Rick Perry.  Good luck, there.  For more:  http://www.texasobserver.org/enterprise/retarded-prisoner-faces-execution

Texas Govenor Supports Abolishing the Death Peanlty

No, it wasn't that asshole, Rick Perry--but see: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/us/20texas.html?_r=1

Get this, former Governor White thinks there might just be a little problem with putting innocent people to death. Wow. No shit.

Texas Death Penalty Follies, continued.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6338320/Texas-man-faces-execution-after-jurors-consult-Bible-to-decide-fate.html

and, accessory-to-the-murder of Cameron Todd Willingham/monster: Gov. Rick Perry

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/101509dnmetarson.21784a018.html

Forensic Evidence, not in Texas

The secessionist bastard to the right is the Govenor of Texas and one of the people who bears direct responsibility for the murder of Cameron Todd Willingham. A commission looking into the execution of Willingham was set to hear from the forensic expert who was highly critical of the "forensic" evidence relied on to prosecute Willingham in the so-called arson murder of his three children. The Govenor who actually had the evidence of Willingham's innocence but ordered the execution anyway--fired the comission chair and two commission members two days before the hearing on the bogus scientific evidence used against Willingham. Perry's new chairman canceled the hearing, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/01/us/01brfs-GOVERNORFIRE_BRF.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=gov%20perry&st=cse

Govenor Rick Perry is an immoral pig.