| "I’ve exonerated him."; Hearing now. (Plaintiffs should read.) | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Feb 5 2009, 03:17 PM (676 Views) | |
| Tidbits | Feb 5 2009, 03:17 PM Post #1 |
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http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/courts/entries/2009/02/05/lubbock_da_in_austin_but_not_f.html
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| Tidbits | Feb 5 2009, 03:20 PM Post #2 |
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on Baird: http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A629430
Edited by Tidbits, Feb 5 2009, 03:44 PM.
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| Tidbits | Feb 5 2009, 03:48 PM Post #3 |
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http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/02/03/0203exonerate.html
Edited by Tidbits, Feb 5 2009, 03:49 PM.
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| Quasimodo | Feb 5 2009, 06:08 PM Post #4 |
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“In my mind, I’ve exonerated him,” Powell said, referring to the DNA testing he ordered last year that linked Johnson to Mallin’s rape. http://www.newsobserver.com/122/story/423471.html "How does DNA exonerate you? It's either a match or there's not a match," Nifong said. " ... If the only thing that we ever have in this case is DNA, then we wouldn't have a case." |
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| Bill Anderson | Feb 6 2009, 12:27 PM Post #5 |
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Murdered by the State of Texas, which would be a fitting epitaph for this young man. Yet, the people who sent him there do not have to pay a dime. No one loses his job, no one has to face the bar of justice, nothing. It seems that the woman who had the police and prosecutor manipulate her and her testimony (so they could get credit for "solving" the case) is the only one in this sorry affair with a conscience. No one else who worked so hard to convict this young man gives a damn at all. Another day at the office. I am sick of this. I am sick of watching prosecutors, police, and judges constantly get away with this evil. I am sick of watching the lapdog press hang onto the every word of these professional liars and treat the Nifongs of the world as though they were giving us the Oracles from the Gods. Yet, I also know there is nothing we can do. They are in charge, and they have absolute legal immunity for their actions. Even trying to make these monsters accountable means we have to use huge amounts of our own resources, while they are able to use tax dollars to defend themselves. And the more these liars are exposed, the more they lie -- and get away with it.
Edited by Bill Anderson, Feb 6 2009, 12:28 PM.
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| Kerri P. | Feb 6 2009, 09:29 PM Post #6 |
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http://www.wral.com/news/national_world/national/story/4488195/ Judge moves to clear dead man of rape conviction By JIM VERTUNO Associated Press Writer Posted: Today at 6:33 p.m. Updated: 1 minute ago AUSTIN, Texas — A judge on Friday ordered the exoneration of a man who died in prison while serving time for rape after recent DNA tests showed another man committed the crime. State District Judge Charles Baird also ordered Timothy Cole's record expunged, calling it the "saddest case I've ever seen." Cole was convicted of raping a Texas Tech University student in Lubbock in 1985 and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He died in 1999 at age 39 from asthma complications. DNA tests in 2008 connected the crime to Jerry Wayne Johnson, who is serving life in prison for separate rapes. Johnson testified in court Friday that he was the rapist in Cole's case and asked the victim and Cole's family to forgive him. "I'm responsible for all this. I'm truly sorry for my pathetic behavior and selfishness. I hope and pray you will forgive me," Johnson said. The Innocence Project of Texas said Cole's case was the first posthumous DNA exoneration in state history. "I have his name," Cole's mother, Ruby Cole Session, said after the hearing. "That's what I wanted." Cole and his relatives for years claimed he was innocent, but no one believed them until evidence from the original rape kit was tested for DNA. The Innocence Project pressed for a hearing to start the process of clearing Cole's name. snip.... |
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| Bill Anderson | Feb 6 2009, 10:42 PM Post #7 |
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Texan who died in prison cleared of rape conviction http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/02/06/texas.exoneration/index.html (CNN) -- A Texas district court judge Friday reversed the conviction of a man who died in prison nearly a decade ago, almost two decades into a prison sentence for a rape he swore he did not commit, CNN affiliate KXAN reported. Timothy Cole was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison for the 1985 rape of 20-year-old Michele Mallin. He maintained his innocence, but it was not confirmed by DNA until years after his 1999 death, when another inmate confessed to the rape. In the courtroom of Judge Charlie Baird Friday afternoon, Mallin, now 44, faced Jerry Johnson, the man who confessed to the rape. "What you did to me, you had no right to do," she told him angrily, according to Austin's KXAN. "You've got no right to do that to any woman. I am the one with the power now, buddy." ~snip~ But, here is the kicker, and why this case makes me angry: The next day, police investigators showed Mallin pictures of possible suspects. She chose a picture of Cole and said he was her attacker. She later identified him in a physical lineup, according to the Innocence Project of Texas. "I was positive," she said. "I really thought it was him." But there was one detail: Mallin told police her attacker was a smoker. "He was smoking the entire time." Cole, who suffered from severe asthma, "was never a smoker," said his brother, Cory Session. "He took daily medications [for asthma] when he was younger." "He was the sacrificial lamb. To them, my brother was the Tech rapist, there was no backtracking. It was the trial of the decade for Lubbock." The "Tech rapist" attacked four women other than Mallin -- abducting them in parking lots near campus and driving them to a vacant location, where he would rape them and flee on foot, according to the Innocence Project of Texas. The rapist "terrorized" the Texas Tech campus in the mid-1980s, the organization said. ~snip~ We are not talking about an insignificant alibi. If this young man was not a smoker, then the prosecutor should have seen immediately that he was pursuing the wrong person. My sense is that the prosecutor (who, like Ronald Stephens, is now a judge) was more interested in getting a conviction than "solving" a case. There is no excuse for this. None. Yet, the former prosecutor who, in my opinion, murdered Timothy Cole, will collect his judge's salary, and sentence people -- and maybe people who are innocent but wrongly convicted -- to prison. This is wrong. This "judge" should not be permitted to step into a courtroom, except if he is wearing an orange jump suit and handcuffs. He is a murderer, and he was just as much a criminal as the "Tech Rapist," and maybe even more so. If you want to know why I think most prosecutors are out-and-out criminals, read this article and you will understand. Michael Nifong was not an outlier; never forget that this pathological liar was a "respected" prosecutor in North Carolina before the outcome of the lacrosse case. Please do not tell me that he was a great guy who simply made some wrong choices; a man does not turn into a sociopath overnight. He always was a lying sociopath, and the criminal "justice" system was a perfect place for this liar to work. Nifong just got caught, that's all. And even after he was caught, he still had plenty of supporters. It just makes me sick.
Edited by Bill Anderson, Feb 6 2009, 10:43 PM.
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| teddy bear | Feb 8 2009, 04:30 PM Post #8 |
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Bill...Here is a case that should make anyone sick. Cindy Sommer, convicted of killing her Marine husband with a fatal dose of arsenic, spends 800 days in jail. looses her kids..and, when it turns out that the forensic tests were bogus, the prosecution has to drop the charges. Does the San diego DA ,Bonnie Dumanis, apologize? Nope. Instead she cavalierly says "Justice was done today. This is how the system is supposed to work" What!! An innocent women is convicted of murder by faulty lab work, prosecutorial misconduct, and an gullible, sexist jury, and the system worked. Even now, the DA refuses to drop charges with prejudice so as to help Ms Sommer in getting her children back. Case was recently featured in " Snapped " tv show on Oxygen channel. |
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| Bill Anderson | Feb 8 2009, 05:11 PM Post #9 |
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Typical prosecutor, even when found to be wrong cannot admit having falsely charged someone. The problem is that these prosecutors are beholden to no one. They are little dictators, and there is no way to get them under control, as they are a law unto themselves.
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