Sunday, June 8, 2008
Prosecutors reflect on Dallas County DNA exonerations
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DALLAS — Got the following note from our friend John Council, regarding Texas Lawyer's excellent examination of the prosecuting attorneys involved in the Dallas County cases that have been overturned on DNA evidence:
While trying to come up with ideas for an article about the Dallas DNA exonerations that hadn't already been done a million times, we stumbled onto a fairly obvious one: Who exactly were all of these prosecutors who wrongfully sent away 17 men for 282 years? We filed an open records request with the DA's office. And the list we got back turned out to be a virtual who's who of the Dallas criminal law world --- everybody from a person who is now a Dallas federal judge to a guy who is now one of Craig Watkins' chief lieutenants handled these cases at trial way back when. We called all of the 29 lawyers and got them to tell us what happened in each case as best as they could remember.
Some have shed tears about the people they sent away and some said they were just hamstrung by bad witnesses in cases that couldn't be contradicted by science --- something that happens to this day. It made for an interesting read.
Posted by Mike O.
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Comments
chasd00 Anonymous
It would be just as interesting to know who was defending and why they failed and ruined these innocent people's lives... and how they sleep at night.
3 months, 4 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )
Pavel Lishin Verified
Just because a defense lawyer fails to defend someone doesn't mean that they're the ones responsible for ruining their lives. You make it sound like they were snickering in the bathroom, thinking "oh man this guy annoys me, I'm gonna botch his case and send him to prison!" to themselves.
3 months, 4 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )
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