Texas Justice

In 1986, Timothy Cole, a student at Texas Tech in Lubbock, was convicted of raping another student at the university, even though:

• his friends provided an alibi for him,
• he was an asthmatic and a non-smoker, but the rapist was a chain smoker
• and the only evidence was the victim's identification of him from a "poorly constructed photo lineup."

The rapist left behind a fingerprint on a cigarette lighter at the scene of the crime, but Lubbock police destroyed that evidence. Timothy Cole refused the prosecution's offer of probation if he confessed; he told his mother that he would rather be imprisoned for something he hadn't done than live free, labelled unjustly as a sexual offender.

In 1995, the real rapist, a man imprisoned for other similar crimes, wrote letters to Lubbock officials and judge Jim Bob Darnell, an assistant district attorney who prosecuted Cole in 1986. Now that the statute of limitations was up, Jerry Wayne Johnson confessed to the crime--but neither Lubbock officials nor Darnell responded to the letters. Over ten years later Jerry Wayne Johnson's continued letter writing confessions caught the attention of Jeff Blackburn and the Innocence Project of Texas. The Innocence Project brought the case to the attention of the Lubbock courts, which refused the Project's request for an inquiry, even though DNA testing proved Cole's innocence. So The Innocence Project took the case to Austin. Finally, Timothy Brian Cole received justice--but Timothy Brian Cole had died in prison in 1999, of an asthmatic attack.

On February 5, 2009:

Travis Co. District Judge Charlie Baird formally exonerated Cole – setting free, at least, his name and reputation. According to the Innocence Project of Texas, it is the first posthumous exoneration in Texas history. "Cole's Posthumous Exoneration is First for Texas," Jordan Smith, The Austin Chronicle, February 13, 2009.

According to NPR,

So far this decade, 34 men in Texas, most of them black, have been exonerated by modern DNA testing. They spent 10, 15, 20, even 27 years wrongly imprisoned for rape before being released. "Family of Man Cleared by DNA Still Seeks Justice," Wade Goodwyn, Morning Edition, February 5, 2009.

I look at the picture of that handsome young man and wonder how many other young men have suffered such Texas justice. See some of them here, at the Innocence Project of Texas website.