TX - Two Men ... Wrongfully Convicted Of Murder ... Released

"The courtroom was filled with tears, then cheers: Two men who spent 12 years in prison for a crime they didn't commit went free today. And while Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins believes this a defining moment for his office and a turning point for Dallas County, 54-year-old Claude Simmons Jr. and 39-year-old Christopher Shun Scott -- sentenced to life in prison for the 1997 robbery and murder of Alfonso Aguilar -- are far less concerned at the moment with the political ramifications.
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"Since their arrests 12 years ago, both men maintained their innocence; one year ago, university-run groups devoted to proving prisoners' innocence championed their cause and convinced the Dallas County District Attorney -- and, ultimately, the Dallas Police Department -- to investigate. Theirs was an extraordinary case: While 20 other men have free before them, Simmons and Scott are the first two freed without DNA evidence. And Michelle Moore at the Conviction Integrity Unit, says they will not be the last: "This is the tip of the iceberg here," she told Unfair Park. "This is where we're going to be in the future."

http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2009/10/exonerees.php

A little more info.
http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2009/10/two-more-innocent-men-from-dallas.html

ohiogirl said:

A little more info.
http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2009/10/two-more-innocent-men-from-dallas.html

Click to expand...

Thank you Ohiogirl.

Eyewitness testimony is infamous for being wrong -- the odds of being wrong are 1 out of 4 or better.

Net, that does not represent proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Trial judges know this to be true, but they want to keep their jobs, so all but a very, very few judges happily let such eyewitness based jury verdicts stand. As a result, our prisons are chock full of wrongfully convicted people.

They are victims of our legal system but few care about them. This is supposed to be a victim oriented website, yet a look at this thread shows the level of concern.


Here's a nice human interest story on another wrongfully convicted person, Dean Cage, who gained his freedom last year. His fiance held true to him for the 14 years that he was wrongfully imprisoned. And the victim (eyewitness) still holds that she identified her true attacker.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/10/26/chicago.love.innocence.1/

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/10/27/chicago.love.innocence.2/



["We get about 200 to 300 new letters a month" from prisoners who say they've been wrongly convicted, says one attorney at the Innocence Project, a national nonprofit that works to exonerate the innocent. Since its inception in 1992, the group has used DNA testing to overturn convictions of 244 inmates.
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"It is extremely easy to get convicted for something you didn't do with eyewitnesses testimony," said Jon Loevy, Dean's lawyer whose firm has represented a dozen exonerated prisoners."]