There's little doubt Tim Cole's story has become one of the pivotal narratives helping redefine public perceptions of the justice system in Texas, so I'd never begrudge any posthumous honor, statue, historical commemoration, etc., that anyone wants to bestow on him. However, a colleague of mine from the Innocence Project of Texas expressed a concern your correspondent simultaneously would echo.
Some people associated with Cole’s case feel that the efforts on his behalf would be better spent on addressing criminal justice reform.“I’m always worried that the more Tim Cole becomes a memorialized symbol, the less people will think about what we really need to do to fix the system in Texas,” said Jeff Blackburn, the founder of the Innocence Project of Texas and the lawyer who secured Cole’s exoneration.While he had no objection to honoring Cole with a degree, Blackburn said, “it does make me think about how much energy people are willing to put into something that’s past and how little energy they’re willing to put into the scary stuff, which is changing the system going forward.”
That's exactly right. Honoring Cole's memory is important but it's no substitute for changing the system so that what happened to him will be less likely to happen to others.
If the state wants to further honor Timothy Cole, arguably the best way would be to approve the innocence commission bill named after him that would review the justice system with an eye toward proposing changes to the law to further reduce the likelihood of convicting innocent people. (The bill passed the House in 2013 but died in the Senate.) Or, the Lege could pass Rodney Ellis' and Terry Canales' bill requiring police to record interrogations in serious cases, the last, unfulfilled recommendation from the now-disbanded Timothy Cole Advisory Panel on Wrongful Convictions (which was a poor man's substitute for a full-blown innocence commission).
If Tech doesn't want to go the honorary degree route, maybe they could figure out how to endow a chair in Cole's name at the law school to hire someone to study and teach about wrongful convictions and how to prevent them. I'd be glad to see Cole further honored, but even happier if such tributes contributed to improving the justice system.
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10 comments:
Texas has an "Innocence Commission" already. It's called fourteen fully funded courts of appeal plus the Court of Criminal Appeals. They hear both direct appeals and post conviction Writs of Habeas Corpus which are potential remedies to help overturn trial court errors and wrongful convictions. Failing that, there is the potential for executive clemency although, from reading this blog, I understand that this route is not often successful. Nonetheless, the taxpayers have better things to spend their money on. Next topic.
Anyone describing the Court of Criminal Appeals as an "innocence commission" has paid little or no attention to how that body operates.
Also, an innocence commission is incredibly inexpensive compared to payouts to exonerees and jury verdicts in civil rights suits that might be prevented by legislative reforms. Cost is a red herring. The reason people oppose an innocence commission is they fear suggested reforms might be enacted and they like the game rigged just the way it is.
The system is hardly "rigged." Texas has been one of the most progressive states in the nation over the last two decades in implementing sensible criminal justice reforms and you, of all people, should acknowledge that. To continue to use wrongful convictions which occurred twenty years ago to justify spending money on "remedies"--as if nothing has happened in the interim--is, quite simply, disingenuous and silly.
Anonymous @ 10:21 and 10:47.....
Wow, you are naive. Your hard-ass attitude is the exact reason why Texas continues to lead the nation in wrongful convictions.
I suggest that you blindly believe the system is always right. That the innocent will not be convicted. This is patently false.
The law in Texas is enforced not the SPIRIT in which the law was written, but in literal, and often bastardized, fashion.
Come to a Texas Inmates Families meeting sometime and ask those in attendance if the system works correctly or if it is an indiscriminate black hole meant to permanently side line the convicted and their families. It works out to be permanent poverty and social death.
To me, you clearly do not see Scott's tag line of "You May Beat the Rap, But You Dont Beat the Ride"
-- A Rider's Family Member
@10:47, no doubt Texas has passed reforms, and you're right I've helped promote many of them. But Texas also incarcerates more people by far than any other state, has witnessed the most exonerations, and too many of our judges basically consider themselves prosecutors in robes. So though we've come a long way, we also had the greatest distance to go to get away from absurdly awful. We can now proudly say we're "not the worst," but is the ability to look down our noses at Louisiana really good enough?
If a wrongful conviction from 20 years ago stemmed from a problem that's been fixed, that's one thing. For example, after the CCA's despicable Roy Criner ruling the Lege has (mostly) ensured access to DNA testing, though prosecutors bucked it has long and as hard as they could. In many cases, though, there's been no fix (e.g., recording interrogations) or only watered down reforms (e.g., eyeID, flawed forensics) that folks like yourself opposed tooth and nail. So there's no reason to believe the things that caused wrongful convictions 20 years ago somehow magically ceased since that time, certainly not because of the minimalist, baby-step reforms passed in the last decade.
I concur, there should be a chair position for Texas Tech Law and perhaps every other law school in this state. It should be required training/boot-camp for both prosecutors and anyone who desires to accept indigent appointments (e.g. wheel appointments). The defense team did not have a hand in the wrongful conviction in the Cole case, but that is not to say there can not nor have there been situations the defense is just as guilty as the State in helping convict the wronged.
"Nonetheless, the taxpayers have better things to spend their money on. Next topic."
Better things than protecting innocent, wrongly accused citizens from a ruthless, wicked and often misguided system? Such as what?
Wow...what an asshole.
Jeff Blackburn and I endowed the Tim Cole Memorial Scholarship at the Texas Tech School. We have given out scholarships every year to students interested in wringful convictions. If you want to contribute to the endowment, send a check to the Texas Tech School of Law.
Grits, that reply along with the rest of the trollspankers was awesome.
If you close your eyes you can actually envision this old fart squirming in his retirement chair as he looks at the boxes of cases he took home. Considering that and his apparent ADD, I believe if you were to ignore him for a month he'd go away.
BLACKBURN HOW DOES AND WILL NO A POSTHUMOUS DEGREE THAT THE FAMILY SOUGHT BACK IN 2008 TAKE AWAY FROM CRIMINAL JUSTICE ISSUES! IF ANYTHING IT BRINGS ATTENTION TO IT. THE FAMILY WISHES FOR THEIR LOVED ONE COMES FIRST MR BLACKBURN. THE NAME OF TIM COLE HAS BEEN ON LOAN TO CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM AND I BELIEVE THE JUSTICE SYSTEM IS A LITTLE BETTER. I KNEW TIM'S MOTHER, MS RUBY COLE-SESSION,GOD REST HER SOUL. THIS IS SOMETHING SHE PESONALLY PERSONALLY WANTED. WHAT SHE WANTED FOR HER SON WILL HAPPEN. CELEBRATE IT OF REMAIN QUIET.
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