Sixty Minutes on Sunday will tell the story of James Lee Woodard, who was released from a Texas prison this year after doing 27 years of a life sentence for a crime he didn't commit.
Also featured in the piece will be Dallas County DA Craig Watkins and Innocence Project of Texas attorney Jeff Blackburn. See recent related Grits coverage here and here.
I am sick and tired of seeing how flawed and damaging this system is. It is broken and yet the judical bodies continue forward and the cowards continue to not make a change. So much time these people have lost. So much time kids in that TYC have lost. And people, the judges and etc refuse to make change. I will be starting a petition to the governor to even look at those on death row like that other governor or judge did. I don't remember where but when he converted the death sentences of all of them with the remarks that the system is broken...he is my hero.
ReplyDeleteIf anyone in the whole criminal justice system violates the rules; except the lawyers and the judges; they get prosecuted and sentenced to prison. This goes for cops, corrections, probation, clerks... anyone, EXCEPT the actual legally licensed practitioners. The ones that should know better. And if they somehow do get sanctioned, it's called legal malpractice; a regulatory violation.
ReplyDeleteAND on top of it all there is now a term called "technical revocation" that is applied to any offenders that wear the "monitor" system and get them parole/probation revoked because of a "technical" problem with the monitors. I truly do not understand how the State of Texas give a multi-million dollar contract to a company (Pro-Tech Monitor) located in Odessa, FL. and expect for there to be not difficulties in the monitoring system, especially when the system is created to operate off satalites in space and they don't account for the weather changes that could mess with the monitors, nor do they account for the structure of buildings that might not let the signal through, but men here in Houston are being sent back to jail, having their paroles/probation revoked because of "techanical revocations" and NO ONE will step up to the plate and say this is not right. My son is in the system and I am doing all that I can to move us out of Texas because the system is damning him to a life of crime even when he didn't commit the crime...he had a "technical revocation".
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