The Freedom Files
columnist: RS Davis

Topic: Crime and Punishment
Two Incredible Men

---

One in jail, and one that got him out.

---

by RS Davis
(Libertarian)
Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Hello Freedomphiles! You know that I doubt the justice system in America. Many think it to be fool-proof, or at least close to it, but I know better. As I wrote in a Freedom File,200 cases have been overturned on appeal because of DNA evidence, even when the convictions were seemingly good.

I quoted The Columbia Law Review article that examined these cases:

False eyewitness testimony was the overwhelming factor (79 percent of the cases), followed by faulty forensic science (55 percent), and false testimony from informants working for the police (18 percent).

In 16 percent of the cases, the defendant actually falsely confessed to the crime. False confessions are common among young and mentally ill suspects, particularly when subjected to harsh interrogation from police...

...Garret found that of the 200 people convicted for crimes for which they were later exonerated, just eighteen were granted reversals by the appellate courts.

Of the rest, 67 had their appeals denied with no written ruling at all. In 63 cases, the appellate court's opinion referred to the defendant's guilt. In 12 other cases, it referred to the "overwhelming" evidence of guilt.

In the remaining cases, the appeals courts either found the defendant's appeal without merit, or found some merit in his claims, but found that the trial court's errors were "harmless," or unlikely to have affected the jury's verdict.

Keep in mind, these are all cases in which the defendant was later determined to be actually innocent of the crime for which he was convicted. More alarmingly, Garret found in his research of these 200 cases that "even after DNA testing became available, courts and law enforcement also posed obstacles to conducting DNA testing, and then denied relief even after DNA proved innocence."

I also profiled in another Freedom File Craig Watkins, the new Dallas County District Attorney, who is dedicated to making sure that only guilty people are behind bars, believing that, as Radley Balko stated, "a prosecutor's job isn't to see how many people he can throw in prison, it's to work toward the fair administration of justice."

Watkins (right) actually partnered with The Innocence Project to review cases and make sure that everyone in a Dallas prison belongs there, and that's not just amazing, but long overdue.  He has my utmost respect and admiration.

Well, he's just sent another reversal down the chute, and a man has been exonerated by the DNA evidence. The Times Record News reports:

Days after he was jailed on New Year's Day 1981 for a murder he said he did not commit, James Lee Woodard began writing letters proclaiming his innocence to anyone who might listen.

More than 27 years later, Woodard is likely to become the longest-serving wrongly convicted man in the nation to be exonerated by DNA testing, his lawyers said.

Woodard was expected to be released on bond Tuesday after a DNA test showed he did not commit a 1980 murder, said Jeff Blackburn, chief counsel for the Innocence Project of Texas.

The Dallas County District Attorney's office is not opposing the request for bond, agreeing with defense lawyers that Woodard, now 55, was wrongly convicted in 1981.

"After a careful review of the files in this case by our Conviction Integrity Unit, it is apparent that James Woodard did not have a fair trial back in 1981 and the results of his post-conviction DNA test exclude him as the perpetrator of any sexual assault that may have occurred, making him eligible for bond while we finalize our investigation on this case," Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins said in a news release.

Woodard would become the 18th person in Dallas County to have his conviction cast aside, a figure unmatched by any county nationally, according to the Innocence Project, a New York-based legal center that specializes in overturning wrongful convictions.

And this is not because Dallas is especially heinous, but because The Innocence Project has unprecedented access to evidence, not to mention the fact that Dallas, unlike most places, has always outsourced its DNA to private labs, who maintained good samples for years.

So, it's clear that Watkins is amazing, but the man he just exonerated is pretty amazing himself.  According to The Raw Story:

James Lee Woodard could have been out of prison long ago, had he just confessed to a parole board that he was guilty of killing his girlfriend in 1980.

But the convicted Dallas man eventually stopped attending those hearings rather than admit to something he said he didn't do. Instead, he waited 27 years until a judge on Tuesday made him the nation's longest-serving inmate to be freed as a result of DNA testing.

"It says a lot about your character that you were more interested in the truth than your freedom," state District Judge Mark Stoltz told Woodard after making his ruling, which must be formalized by an appeals court or a pardon from Gov. Rick Perry.

Wow.  I don't know if I could have done it. I'm pretty stubborn, but I don't know.  I might've broken.  That is one amazing dude.

Did you like this article?
If you did, Thumb It!
10 thumbs so far

2008 RS Davis, all rights reserved.
Published: Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Last modified: Wednesday, April 30, 2008

The views expressed in this article are those of RS Davis only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. RS Davis is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.

Report violation by RS Davis of Nolan Chart LLC's terms of use policy.