IAPE Evidence Blog

Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Texas)
BYLINE: MITCH MITCHELL; mitchmitchell@star-telegram.com

Texas

More than a decade after his death and nearly 25 years since his arrest, the Texas Board of Par­dons and Paroles is rec­om­mend­ing clemency for a Fort Worth man who died in prison after being wrong­fully con­victed on rape charges.

The board sent a let­ter to Tim Cole’s attor­ney at the Inno­cence Project of Texas on Fri­day say­ing that it had voted to rec­om­mend clemency and for­warded its deci­sion to Gov. Rick Perry for his signature.

It would be the state’s first posthu­mous par­don, and Perry has indi­cated that he would sign an order clear­ing Cole’s name if rec­om­mended by the board.

“Gov. Perry looks for­ward to par­don­ing Tim Cole pend­ing the receipt of a pos­i­tive rec­om­men­da­tion from the Board of Par­dons and Paroles,” Perry spokes­woman Alli­son Cas­tle wrote in an e-mail to The Asso­ci­ated Press on Saturday.

Cory Ses­sion, who has been fight­ing to clear his brother’s name for years, said he antic­i­pates that the gov­er­nor will sign Cole’s par­don in March dur­ing a cer­e­mony in Fort Worth.

“To say that the wheels of jus­tice turn slowly would be an under­state­ment,” Ses­sion said Saturday.

“The ques­tion is: How many more Tim Coles are out there?”

As a Texas Tech Uni­ver­sity stu­dent, Cole became the tar­get of a ser­ial rape inves­ti­ga­tion in Lubbock.

While Cole main­tained his inno­cence, in 1985 he was sen­tenced to 25 years in prison.

He died in 1999, at age 39, from com­pli­ca­tions of asthma.

Jerry Wayne John­son, serv­ing life in prison for a series of rapes, was linked to Cole’s case by DNA test­ing in 2008, but only after writ­ing let­ters for years, while Cole was still alive, to Lub­bock County pros­e­cu­tors and judges con­fess­ing to the crime. Johnson’s let­ters were ignored.

The Inno­cence Project pressed for the DNA tests after John­son mailed a con­fes­sion to Cole’s fam­ily in 2007.

State Dis­trict Judge Char­lie Baird in Austin pro­nounced Cole not guilty dur­ing an exon­er­a­tion hear­ing last year, say­ing he had “suf­fered the great­est mis­car­riage of jus­tice imag­in­able in our crim­i­nal jus­tice system.”

His brother’s ordeal has lead Ses­sion to become an advo­cate for crim­i­nal jus­tice reform in Austin and Wash­ing­ton, D.C. Ses­sion said orga­ni­za­tions he works with esti­mate that 2 to 5 per­cent of peo­ple con­victed in Texas have been con­victed wrongfully.

At the end of fis­cal 2007, the Texas Depart­ment of Crim­i­nal Jus­tice reported that about 750,000 peo­ple — 1 in every 22 Tex­ans — were in prison or jail or on parole or probation.

“I hope that it makes peo­ple under­stand that just because some­one comes into your court under­funded and under­rep­re­sented, it does not nec­es­sar­ily mean that they are guilty,” Ses­sion said. “And I hope that it never takes another fam­ily this long to clear the name of an inno­cent fam­ily member.”

Last year, the Texas Leg­is­la­ture passed the Tim Cole Act, increas­ing the lump sum com­pen­sa­tion to vic­tims of wrong­ful impris­on­ment from $50,000 to $80,000 for each year of imprisonment.

Cole’s fam­ily is eli­gi­ble but has not filed a claim.

“Most of the time, every one of these cases sig­ni­fies that the sys­tem has gone wrong badly and that some­where in this state there’s some guilty guy won­der­ing around com­mit­ting more crimes,” said Jeff lack­burn, chief coun­sel for the Inno­cence Project.

“That’s a point that I wish most pros­e­cu­tors and police would under­stand. The inno­cent should be freed, and the guilty should be caught and pun­ished. It’s crazy that a group of over­worked lawyers and wide-eyed law stu­dents should have to do that. The state should be doing this work.”

This report includes mate­r­ial from The Asso­ci­ated Press .

MITCH MITCHELL, 817 – 390-7752

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