Guilty, now shut up and go away.
So I'm doing what I usually do on a Sunday, no not that! The other thing, watching too much TV. A couple beers and Fox's Sunday line up and I'm good. Tonight I caught 60 Minutes on CBS. It left me crying in my beer:
(CBS) There's been some bitter soul searching going on in Dallas County, as one man after another is being released from prison after being convicted, years ago, of crimes they did not commit. As correspondent Scott Pelley reports, it happened again just last week with the release of a man who had been proclaiming his innocence, behind bars, for 27 years.
So far, 17 men have been cleared in Dallas - that's more than most states. All were put on trial by prosecutors who worked for the legendary District Attorney Henry Wade. Wade was Dallas' top prosecutor for more than 30 years. He never lost a case he handled personally. But it turns out the record of Wade's office was too good to be true. And now, a new Dallas district attorney is focusing on the Wade legacy - it's a search for innocent men waiting to be exonerated.
James Woodard went away in 1981, convicted in the murder of his girlfriend who had been raped and strangled. He was prosecuted by the office of District Attorney Henry Wade. For nearly 30 years, he never gave up writing letters, and filing motions. But no one was willing to grant him a hearing-until now.
60 Minutes was there last year when Woodard gave the DNA sample that would determine his true guilt or innocence. Since 2001, there has been a series of men in Dallas County who have walked from prison into freedom.
The exonerated include Eugene Henton, James Waller, who did almost 11 years, Greg Wallis, who was in for nearly 19, and James Giles, who did 10 years; Billy Smith was convicted of aggravated sexual assault and served nearly 20 years for a crime he didn't commit.
James Waller rejected a plea bargain for a rape he didn't commit. "They offered me three years. I turned it down. And I said, 'We go to trial.' And I came out with 30 years," he tells Pelley.
Asked why he turned down the deal, Waller says, "I know one day that I was gonna have to die, and I didn't want to go before God saying I did something that I didn't do."
Watching this and I note that of the five men they interviewed who had been cleared- only one was white. Somehow I don't think statistically that's merely accidental.
Watching it also made me want to leave here and join the efforts to search through these files. Not much has me wanting to leave my little corner of paradise by the beach, this did.
Did anyone else catch this show?
Thoughts?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/...n4065454.shtml
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Last edited by Tully Mars; 05-04-2008 at 04:10 PM..
Reason: Left out link, or I fucking felt like it- you pick
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