Thursday, June 26, 2008 (AP)
DNA test clears Texas man after 15 years in prison
By Jeff Carlton, Associated Press Writer
A Texas man who has spent more than 15 years in prison for kidnapping and
robbery is expected to become the latest wrongly convicted person proved
innocent by DNA testing, a prosecutor said Thursday.
Patrick Waller, 38, was convicted of aggravated kidnapping, aggravated
robbery and cocaine possession in connection with a 1992 kidnapping and
assault. DNA testing conducted last year excluded Waller as the
contributor of DNA found at the crime scene, said Mike Ware, the head of
the Conviction Integrity Unit in the Dallas County prosecutor's office.
The DNA testing proved a match to another man who Ware said has confessed
to the crime and implicated an accomplice, who also confessed. Neither,
however, can be prosecuted because the statute of limitations has expired.
Both are free, although one is on parole, Ware said.
"It is a gross understatement to say that we are displeased with the fact
that we cannot seek justice for the victims in this case because of the
laws back in 1992," Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins said in
a statement.
Telephone messages left for Waller's attorney were not immediately
returned Thursday night.
The abduction happened in March 1992, when two men kidnapped a couple and
stole several hundred dollars. The men also sexually assaulted the woman
after tying up the man, Ware said.
Another couple who drove up to the scene were also held at gunpoint. A
security guard arrived and scared off the men, who fled in separate cars,
Ware said.
Three of the four people abducted picked Waller in a photo lineup. The
fourth later picked him out of a live lineup, Ware said.
Waller maintained his innocence and presented an alibi at trial but was
convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
He had requested a post-conviction DNA testing in 2001 but was denied by a
judge, Ware said.
"It was an appropriate case for testing in 2001," Ware said. "Had he been
tested back then, then the actual perpetrator could have been identified
and could have been prevented from paroling out."
Waller had better luck under Watkins, whose office works with the
Innocence Project of Texas to review cases in which jailed inmates have
requested DNA testing.
Counting Waller, DNA testing has proved the innocence of 19 Dallas County
men since 2001, a national high, according to the Innocence Project, a New
York-based legal center that specializes in overturning wrongful
convictions. Texas leads the nation with 33 such exonerations.
A hearing for Waller is scheduled for next month in the state district
court in Dallas. – Copyright 2008 AP
Tuesday, April 29, 2008 (AP)
DALLAS MAN FREED BY DNA TESTING AFTER 27 YEARS IN PRISON
By Schuyler Dixon, Associated Press Writer
A Dallas man who spent more than 27 years in prison for a murder he didn't
commit was freed Tuesday, after being incarcerated longer than any other
wrongfully convicted U.S. inmate cleared by DNA testing.
James Lee Woodard stepped out of the courtroom and raised his arms to a
throng of photographers. Supporters and other people gathered outside the
court erupted in applause.
"No words can express what a tragic story yours is," state District Judge
Mark Stoltz told Woodard at a brief hearing before his release.
Woodard, cleared of the 1980 murder of his girlfriend, became the 18th
person in Dallas County to have his conviction cast aside. That's a figure
unmatched by any county nationally, according to the Innocence Project, a
New York-based legal center that specializes in overturning wrongful
convictions.
"I thank God for the existence of the Innocence Project," Woodard, 55,
told the court. "Without that, I wouldn't be here today. I would be
wasting away in prison."
Overall, 31 people have been formally exonerated through DNA testing in
Texas, also a national high. That does not include Woodard and at least
three others whose exonerations will not become official until Gov. Rick
Perry grants pardons or the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals formally
accepts the ruling of lower courts that have already recommended
exoneration.
Woodard was sentenced to life in prison in July 1981 for the murder of a
21-year-old Dallas woman found raped and strangled near the banks of the
Trinity River.
He was convicted primarily on the basis of testimony from two
eyewitnesses, said Natalie Roetzel, the executive director of the
Innocence Project of Texas. One has since recanted in an affidavit. As for
the other, "we don't believe her testimony was accurate," Roetzel said.
Like nearly all the exonorees, Woodard has maintained his innocence
throughout his time in prison. But after filing six writs with an appeals
court, plus two requests for DNA testing, his pleas of innocence became so
repetitive and routine that "the courthouse doors were eventually closed
to him and he was labeled a writ abuser," Roetzel said.
"On the first day he was arrested, he told the world he was innocent ...
and nobody listened," Jeff Blackburn, chief counsel for the Innocence
Project of Texas, said during Tuesday's hearing.
He even stopped attending his parole hearings because gaining his release
would have meant confessing to a crime he didn't do.
"It says a lot about your character that you were more interested in the
truth than your freedom," the judge told Woodard after making his ruling.
Blackburn and prosecutors hailed Tuesday's hearing as a landmark moment of
frequent adversaries working together.
Since the DNA evidence was tied to rape and Woodard was convicted of
murder, Innocence Project attorneys had to prove that the same person
committed both crimes. They said they couldn't have done that without
access to evidence provided by Dallas County District Attorney Craig
Watkins' office.
"You've got to have very good lawyers with a lot of experience and skill
... working on both ends of this case, hard," Blackburn said. "And you've
also got to have government power behind what you do."
Under Watkins, Dallas County has a program supervised by the Innocence
Project of Texas that is reviewing hundreds of cases of convicts who have
requested DNA testing to prove their innocence.
While the number of exonerations on Watkins' watch continues to grow, he
said this one was a little different.
"I saw the human side of it, and seeing the human said of it just gives
you more courage to advocate for issues like this," said Watkins, who had
breakfast with Woodard on Tuesday morning. "It gives me that resolve to go
even further to find out who (the killer) is so that we can get him into
custody."
Woodard said his family was "small and scattered," although he pointed out
a niece in the courtroom. He said his biggest regret was not being with
his mother when she died.
"I can tell you what I'd like to do first: breathe fresh, free air,"
Woodard said during a news conference in the courtroom after the hearing.
"I don't know what to expect. I haven't been in Dallas since buses were
blue." Copyright 2008 AP
A one-time suspect in the 1992 rape and murder of a 3-year-old child has been charged with the crime, more than a decade after another man was convicted in the shocking case.
Attorney General Jim Hood said Justin Albert Johnson, 51, faces charges of capital murder and sexual battery on a child under the age of 14.
Johnson was arraigned Tuesday, pleaded not guilty and was being held without bond. It was not immediately clear if he had obtained an attorney.
Kennedy Brewer was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in 1995 for the crime. He spent well over a decade in various prisons and jails, including death row.
The slaying of Christine Jackson was a "sickening case" in which the girl was taken from her home in the middle of the night, raped and brutally strangled, Hood said.
The child was the daughter of Brewer's girlfriend. She disappeared from their home on May 2, 1992, said Vanessa Potkin, a staff attorney with the New York-based Innocence Project, a nonprofit organization that tries to free prisoners believed to be wrongly convicted.
Brewer, who was 22 at the time of the killing, was released on bond last year pending a new trial after his attorney and the Innocence Project pushed for an appeal of his conviction based on DNA testing.
Sperm found on the child's body was analyzed by two different laboratories and both said the DNA was "a perfect match to Johnson," Potkin said.
The charges against Brewer are still pending. "If we find that he is fully exonerated, then we will move quickly to remove those charges," Hood said Thursday.
Johnson was a suspect early in the case and a blood sample was taken just days after the murder, Potkin said. It was sent to the Mississippi State Crime Laboratory, where it was preserved for more than a decade, she said.
"He was right there from the beginning," Potkin said.
But, she said, investigators quickly focused on Brewer because he was the only man in the house the night of the disappearance.
When asked Thursday if prosecutors still believe Brewer was involved, District Attorney Forrest Allgood said he needs to review the newest information before commenting.
In the meantime, Brewer's attorneys say he is trying to pick up where he left off.
"He's gainfully employed. He's working and he's living with his elderly, disabled mother, who he assists in taking care of," attorney Carrie Jourdan said. "He has had no problems from a criminal legal standpoint" since his release.
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2008 AP The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2008/02/08/national/a050548S28.DTL
