Perry to present pardon papers to exonerated inmate's family

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@@ Crime and Safety @@

Perry to present pardon papers to exonerated inmate's family

By DAVE MONTGOMERY

[e-mail]

AUSTIN -- Gov. Rick Perry will be in Fort Worth on Friday to formally present the family of Tim Cole with a posthumous pardon he granted the wrongfully convicted inmate this month.

"While nothing will ever make up for the time Tim Cole lost with his family while he was wrongfully imprisoned, Gov. Perry is hopeful the posthumous pardon will bring them a measure of peace," Perry's spokeswoman Allison Castle said. "The governor wants to personally deliver the pardon to the family."

Cole, who died in prison in 1999 while serving a 25-year sentence, was exonerated by a Travis County judge last year after DNA testing cleared him of the 1985 rape of a Texas Tech student. Another man, Jerry Wayne Johnson, had sent a letter to Cole's mother confessing to the crime.


Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/03/17/2048150/perry-to-present-pardon-papers.html#ixzz0ib00ewRQ

[efhmc]

1. Wonder how many have been executed?

[sonias]

2. We've always contented that there are some

It has been very hard so far to make an airtight case for that belief.

The Texas judicial system is the worst in the U.S. with inadequate protections for the accused. It's pretty much a school to prison pipeline in some urban areas. You know that mistakes have been made. We know there have been lots of exonerations in Dallas for example, of wrongly convicted. That's because the D.A. there has made it a priority to review all the cases.

If Harris/Houston took the same approach there would be a lot more exonerations.

You know in your gut that there had to have been innocents killed, don't you?

[efhmc]

3. So sad to know that that must be true.