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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The Asso­ci­ated Press State & Local Wire
BYLINE: By JEFF CARLTON, Asso­ci­ated Press Writer

Dal­las, TX

Attor­neys for a man who died in prison after he was wrongly con­victed of rape have filed for a par­don with the Texas Board of Par­dons and Paroles.

Tim Cole’s par­don appli­ca­tion was mailed this week to Austin by The Inno­cence Project of Texas.

Cole, an Army vet­eran, died behind bars in 1999 at age 39. He was con­victed of a 1985 rape of a Texas Tech stu­dent in Lub­bock. A 2008 DNA test cleared Cole and impli­cated con­victed rapist Jerry Wayne John­son, who con­fessed in sev­eral let­ters to court offi­cials that date back to 1995.

Cole’s fam­ily has been ask­ing for a par­don from Gov. Rick Perry, who was sym­pa­thetic but main­tained he legally could not issue a posthu­mous par­don. Last month, Attor­ney Gen­eral Greg Abbott ruled that the Texas con­sti­tu­tion lim­its par­don power only in cases of trea­son or impeachment.

The par­dons board will make a rec­om­men­da­tion to Perry, who then will decide whether to issue the par­don. Perry has indi­cated he will do so.

Last year, Perry signed into law the Tim Cole Act, which made Texas the most gen­er­ous state in com­pen­sat­ing the wrongly con­victed. It went from pay­ing the wrongly con­victed $50,000 for each year of incar­cer­a­tion to $80,000 per year, plus a life­time $80,000 annu­ity that varies based on life expectancy and other factors.

Cole’s fam­ily is eli­gi­ble to col­lect the lump sum, but has not filed a claim.

Cole is the first Texas man to be posthu­mously cleared by DNA test­ing. Last year, state dis­trict Judge Charles Baird in Austin pro­nounced Cole inno­cent dur­ing an exon­er­a­tion hear­ing. Baird said mis­taken wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, ques­tion­able sus­pect line­ups and a faulty police inves­ti­ga­tion led to Cole’s wrong­ful con­vic­tion. Lub­bock Police Chief Dale Holton has acknowl­edged Cole’s inno­cence and sup­ported the par­don appli­ca­tion that was dated Monday.

As a Texas Tech Uni­ver­sity stu­dent, Cole became the tar­get of the inves­ti­ga­tion of a ser­ial rapist in Lub­bock after ask­ing out a female under­cover offi­cer who was pos­ing as a stu­dent to attract the rapist.

He was sen­tenced to 25 years and main­tained his inno­cence until his death from com­pli­ca­tions of asthma.

John­son, who was serv­ing life in prison for a series of other rapes, mailed a con­fes­sion to Cole’s home address in 2007 not know­ing Cole had been dead for eight years. Cole’s mother received the let­ter, and along with the Inno­cence Project of Texas, she pressed for DNA testing.

A 2008 test cleared Cole and linked John­son to the rape. He wrote sev­eral con­fes­sions to Lub­bock County pros­e­cu­tors and judges begin­ning in 1995 when Cole was still alive. But his let­ters were ignored.

John­son can­not be pros­e­cuted for the rape that sent Cole to prison because the statute of lim­i­ta­tions has expired.

The Cole case is now the sub­ject of a fed­eral law­suit brought by his fam­ily. It specif­i­cally seeks dis­cov­ery from a Texas Tech police offi­cer and four Lub­bock police offi­cers, includ­ing the under­cover officer.

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment“
www.IAPE.org

The Den­ver Post
By Miles Mof­feit, The Den­ver Post
Link to Arti­cle
One Pic­ture
Five Videos

Larimer County, CO

Tim Mas­ters, 38, spent a decade behind bars before advanced DNA test­ing resulted in his release in 2008. (Den­ver Post file photo)

Larimer County com­mis­sion­ers have reached a set­tle­ment to com­pen­sate Tim Mas­ters in the range of $4 mil­lion for his wrong­ful impris­on­ment in the 1987 mur­der of Peggy Het­trick, accord­ing to sources close to the negotiations.

The deal, set for a for­mal vote by the board on Tues­day, would pay dam­ages result­ing from the conviction.

At the time, pros­e­cu­tors Terry Gilmore and Jolene Blair, both now Larimer County judges, used a psy­cho­log­i­cal the­ory in the absence of any phys­i­cal evi­dence to per­suade a jury to con­vict Masters.

Mas­ters, 38, spent a decade behind bars before he was released in 2008 after advanced DNA test­ing found no trace of Mas­ters’ genetic mate­r­ial as well as DNA that may point to another sus­pect. There has been no new arrest in the case.

Mas­ters’ attor­neys dis­cov­ered that the pros­e­cu­tors and Detec­tive Jim Brod­er­ick con­cealed evi­dence that would have aided Mas­ters at his 1998 trial.

Sep­a­rate nego­ti­a­tions between Mas­ters’ attor­ney David Lane and the city of Fort Collins have not yet resulted in advanced set­tle­ment talks, sources say.

Col­orado pub­lic defender Doug Wil­son said the Larimer County deal is historic.

“I don’t ever remem­ber a set­tle­ment on a wrong­ful impris­on­ment in the past 28 years,” he said. “I hope this sends a sig­nal to law enforce­ment and pros­e­cu­tors that they absolutely have to turn over all evi­dence and do thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tions before they con­vict somebody.”

Mas­ters, his attor­neys and county com­mis­sion­ers declined to com­ment on details of the set­tle­ment talks, say­ing they were for­bid­den to speak under a con­fi­den­tial­ity agree­ment that expires Tues­day, when details will be released.

Mas­ters’ law­suit sought dam­ages under civil-rights law, say­ing Gilmore and Blair vio­lated his con­sti­tu­tional rights by using selected and man­u­fac­tured evi­dence to falsely accuse him. The two denied the accusations.

The Col­orado Supreme Court reg­u­la­tory office had cen­sured Gilmore and Blair for eth­i­cal mis­con­duct by with­hold­ing evi­dence dur­ing the mur­der trial. That also was a mile­stone in legal cir­cles — the first time sit­ting state judges had been dis­ci­plined for actions com­mit­ted before they took the bench.

Brod­er­ick is the sub­ject of a reopened per­jury inves­ti­ga­tion by Weld County pros­e­cu­tors after Mas­ters’ attor­neys found addi­tional evi­dence that shows he gave con­flict­ing tes­ti­mony about his involve­ment in a sur­veil­lance oper­a­tion of Masters.

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment“
www.IAPE.org