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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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
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www.IAPE.org

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

mysanantonio.com
BYLINE: Eva Ruth Moravec — Express-News
Link to Arti­cle
One Photo

Alamo Heights, TX

Dana Clair Edwards
No sign of break-in found at Edwards’ apartment

The father of a woman stran­gled in an apart­ment near Alamo Heights in 2009 says he always sus­pected her ex-boyfriend played a role in her death, but it took DNA from a blood­ied towel for San Anto­nio police to arrest him Sat­ur­day morning.

Jon Thomas Ford, 41, remains in Bexar County Jail on one count of mur­der in con­nec­tion with the Jan. 1, 2009, death of Dana Clair Edwards, 32. Ford’s bail is set at $100,000.

“It really doesn’t bring clo­sure. I think we’re a long way from being through,” said Dar­rell Edwards, who with his wife dis­cov­ered their youngest child bru­tally mur­dered in her apart­ment about 24 hours after she was killed.

“We were very aware when we found our daughter’s body that our lives would change for­ever,” he said Sunday.

Edwards said he’d sus­pected Ford, who had dated Dana Clair Edwards for 21/2 years and was “absolutely” wel­comed into the fam­ily, all along. He said Ford attended fam­ily din­ners and par­ties, and even went on vaca­tion with the Edwardses.

Ford secured a lawyer almost imme­di­ately after the slay­ing, the victim’s father said, and never made con­tact with the fam­ily again.

Ford and his par­ents attended the memo­r­ial ser­vice for the woman he’s charged with killing, said Edwards, who remem­bers shak­ing their hands in a receiv­ing line.

But it wasn’t until Dec. 9 that inves­ti­ga­tors got a report on DNA pulled off a bloody towel that cov­ered the slain woman’s head. Two days later, offi­cials obtained a search war­rant for Ford’s DNA, which was found to match evi­dence on the towel, offi­cials said.

“There were no signs of him being vio­lent when they were dat­ing,” Edwards said, adding that the cou­ple broke up in Octo­ber 2008. “It was cer­tainly not our thought that Thomas Ford could have done this, but as the facts have come out, we believe it.”

The Edwards fam­ily also believes Ford killed their daughter’s beloved Jack Rus­sell ter­rier, Grit, which was found in Olmos Creek about a week after the slay­ing. Offi­cials deter­mined Grit died of blunt force trauma. A sec­ond dog, a res­cued mutt named Toby, now lives with the Edwardses.

Edwards said he plans to attend the trial and will tes­tify if called upon.

“When you lose your daugh­ter, your fish­ing buddy, your best friend, you don’t like the loss,” he said. “You know that nothing’s ever going to replace (her) or make you feel bet­ter about it.”

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