CHAPTER SEVEN: GET OUT OF JAIL FREE

 

 

            Despite the usual lack of DNA evidence in murder cases, some people in Texas still manage to get off of death row on grounds of actual innocence. Although these cases are few and far between, a quick look at some of them will give insight into the nature of the Texas criminal justice system.

            Some of the cases recorded here occurred before George W. Bush became Governor of Texas (he governed from January 1995 to December 2000). They serve to illustrate the corruption of the criminal justice system Gov. Bush inherited. This corruption is consequential since it was this very system which produced the inmates slated for execution during his tenure.

            Probably the stupidest, most asinine case of mistaken identity you’ve ever heard of. In 1980 two women broke into a fur store and shot and killed its owner, Rubin Danziger, in front of his wife. A few days later, Joyce Ann Brown and Rene Michelle Taylor of Denver, Texas were arrested for the crime. Ms. Taylor’s fingerprints were found on the getaway car, and she later admitted to the murder. Investigators discovered that the getaway car had indeed been rented to Joyce Ann Brown of Denver, Texas, the very one who had been arrested. Investigators questioned her further, and she admitted loaning the car to Ms. Taylor, but claimed to know nothing of the planned robbery.

            At this point in the investigation, the police have their suspect, a confession, a getaway car with the suspect’s fingerprints on it, and the renter of the getaway car, Joyce Ann Brown of Denver, Texas. But then, a police officer remembered another Joyce Ann Brown in Dallas, Texas who had been in some minor brushes with the law. And . . . she was employed in a fur store, just like the store that had been robbed!

            Now things get very complicated, because there are two Joyce Ann Browns, one from Denver who had rented the getaway car and was friends and neighbors with the admitted killer, Rene Taylor. The other Joyce Ann Brown lived far away in Dallas and hadn’t rented the getaway car and didn’t know Ms. Taylor. It’s very important to keep these two Joyce Ann Browns distinct, because the Texas police got them confused.

            Although there was no evidence that Ms. Brown of Dallas knew Ms. Taylor, and although there was no physical evidence linking her to the crime, police placed her photo in front of Ms. Danziger, the murder victim’s wife, instead of a photo of Joyce Ann Brown of Denver. The wife then identified Ms. Brown of Dallas as an accomplice to murder. Later, at trial, Ms. Danziger would identify Ms. Brown of Dallas from the stand. Ms. Brown of Denver (the murderer’s friend and renter of the getaway car) couldn’t be identified by the victim’s wife, because she had never been charged with anything nor put in any lineup nor had her picture been shown to the survivor or witnesses.

            A jailhouse snitch and convicted perjurer, Martha Bruce, testified that Ms. Brown (Dallas) admitted to the crime while in prison with her (prosecutors withheld information of Ms. Bruce’s perjury from the defense). Ms. Brown (Dallas) was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison, while Ms. Brown (Denver) continued to live out her life undisturbed. Ms. Brown (Dallas) is black.

            Did the Texas judicial system discover its mistake? No, but 60 Minutes did. It ran a feature on Ms. Brown’s conviction, and bad publicity won her an appeal and eventual pardon in November of 1989. After nine years in jail, Ms. Brown was released. Her daughter, who was 11 when she entered prison, was by the time of her release 20-years-old.[1]

            Evidence, schmevidence. On November 28, 1976 Dallas Police Officers Robert Wood and Teresa Turko pulled over a car driving without its headlights on. As Officer Wood approached the car the driver shot five times. Officer Wood died immediately and the car sped off. Officer Turko fired several shots at the car. She did not get a license number, but reported that there was only one driver, and he was wearing a coat with a fur collar. Despite extensive police searching, the assailant got away.[2]

            Over the next several days in Vidor, Texas (300 miles southeast of Dallas) a 16-year old runaway named David Ray Harris bragged to his friends that he had “offed a pig.” Police heard about this and questioned Mr. Harris but he said he was only trying to impress his friends. The police also confiscated his .22-caliber pistol and established it to have been the one used in the crime. Then Mr. Harris changed his story, claiming that he had been present at the shooting, but Randy Adams, a hitchhiker he had picked up, had committed the crime.

            Randall Dale Adams had in fact been picked up by David Ray Harris, and they had spent the day drinking, smoking pot, and watching soft core pornography before Mr. Harris dropped Mr. Adams off at his hotel. Such conduct is reprehensible but not felonious. Prior to the murder Mr. Adams’ only conviction had been a DUI. Having been fingered by Mr. Harris, Mr. Adams was arrested by Dallas police for the murder of Officer Wood.

            It is not known why investigators bought Mr. Harris’ improbable story that Mr. Adams had shot Officer Woods and then given Mr. Harris the gun. One factor may have been the desire for an execution in retribution for the officer’s killing. At 16, Mr. Harris would not have been eligible for the death penalty. But at 27, Mr. Adams would be. In any event, although Mr. Harris had bragged about “offing a pig,” although he had the getaway car and murder weapon in his possession, although his fingerprints were on that weapon but not Mr. Adams’, although he wore a coat with a fur collar but Mr. Adams did not, and although Officer Turko had said there was only one person in the car, the police investigation at this point focused solely on Mr. Adams.

            At trial the prosecution presented a written statement which Mr. Adams had in fact signed which placed him near the crime scene at some point that day. It said nothing else about the murder. They called this a confession, but Mr. Adams denied the written statement in its entirety. The prosecution also presented three surprise witnesses about whom the defense had not been informed, one of whom (Michael Randell) testified that he had seen Mr. Adams in the car with Mr. Harris at the crime scene, and two others (Robert and Emily Miller) who testified that only Mr. Adams had been in the car.

            When the defense discovered contradictions in the between the police report and trial testimony of Ms. Miller, they tried to call her back to the stand for cross-examination but couldn’t locate her. The prosecution informed the defense that she had moved to Illinois; in fact, she had simply moved to a new apartment in Dallas. When the defense attempted to introduce her police report as evidence the judge wouldn’t allow it since Ms. Miller would not be present to defend it.

            The jury convicted Randall Dale Adams of capital homicide. Testifying at the sentencing phase of the trial was Dr. James Grigson, who had earned himself the nickname “Dr. Death” for his inflammatory psychiatric analyses of defendants, many of whom he had never interviewed. According to Mr. Adams, Dr. Grigson had spoken with him for only15 minutes and asked him only about his family, not about the crime. He also asked him to interpret two proverbs: a rolling stone gathers no moss, and a bird in hand is worth two in the bush. Based on this interview, Dr. Grigson diagnosed Mr. Adams as “a [sic] sociopathic personality disorder . . . On the scale of sociopathy, I would place Mr. Adams at the very extreme, worse, or severe end of the scale. You can’t get beyond that . . . There is nothing known in the world today that is going to change this man, we don’t have anything.”[3] Impressed by the doctor’s credentials, the jury sentenced Mr. Adams to death. (Dr. Grigson has testified in over 100 Texas capital trials that have resulted in death sentences.)

            In January 1979 the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and death sentence. Mr. Adams was scheduled for execution on May 8, 1979. He was only three days away from his lethal injection when U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell ordered a stay of execution based on the unconstitutionality of the juror selection process in Mr. Adams’ trial. In order to avoid the expense of a new trial and the possibility of exoneration, prosecutors asked that Mr. Adams’ sentence be commuted to life in prison, and Governor Bill Clements complied.

            Randall Dale Adams would have spent the rest of his life in prison if not for a film maker, Errol Morris, who was producing a documentary on Dr. James Grigson. When Mr. Morris met Mr. Adams he changed his subject to that case. Mr. Morris learned that since testifying against Mr. Adams in trial, Mr. Harris (the owner of the murder weapon) had been convicted of burglary, kidnaping, armed robbery, and murder – crimes that would never have been committed if he had been prosecuted for Officer Woods’ murder instead of Mr. Adams. Mr. Morris also discovered that a robbery charge against the daughter of Emily Miller (who testified that she had seen Mr. Adams at the crime scene) had been dropped after she agreed to testify. Also, Mr. Morris confirmed the serious contradictions between Ms. Miller’s police report and trial testimony. A new trial was granted.

            Then, a miracle occurred: David Harris confessed to the crime to Judge Larry Baraka, who asked the Board of Pardons and Paroles to grant Mr. Adams a pardon. They refused. But the Court of Criminal Appeals granted him a new trial, writing, “The State was guilty of suppressing evidence favorable to the accused, deceiving the trial court during the applicant’s trial, and knowingly using perjured testimony.”[4] Prosecutors, faced with almost no evidence besides that of their own wrongdoing, dropped all charges. Randall Dale Adams was freed on March 23, 1989 after twelve years on death row.

            He had this to say about his treatment: “I never received monetary compensation from the State of Texas nor even an apology. For the past ten years, I have spoken out about the death penalty across America and overseas. I have testified before Congress, spoken on behalf of many death row inmates and authored a book, Adams v. Texas. In 1998 I returned to Texas . . . where I met my future wife. I currently reside in Texas and continue to speak out against the death penalty and our gravely flawed criminal justice system. I am employed and happily married and have no added arrests or violence in my life since my release. It appears Dr. Grigson’s analysis of me was grossly incorrect. I wonder how many others he misdiagnosed? The court judge stated at my death sentencing hearing, ‘May God have mercy on your soul.’ I will leave it to God to judge Dr. Grigson and the state of Texas.”[5]

            No one involved in framing Mr. Adams has been disciplined or punished. Mr. Harris remains on death row.

            “Since you’re the nigger, you’re elected.” There are a disproportionate number of blacks and Hispanics on death row in Texas. Various explanations are offered, one being that they commit disproportionately more murders. Another possible explanation is that the law is selectively enforced. Nationwide, 98% of district attorneys are white.[6] The vast majority of Texas district attorneys are white. It is difficult to imagine that such a skewed statistic could not affect the enforcement of the law. Another possible contributing factor is law enforcement officials’ simple desire to resolve a case. “Prosecutors seek capital punishment in cases where they are most likely to win . . . [therefore they lean toward] cases involving the killing of whites, especially by blacks because these cases fit the category of crimes that elicits the most fear from white jurors who identify with the victims.”[7]

            Clarence Brandley fit the bill well as a black suspect in the rape and murder of a teenage white girl. On the morning of August 23, 1980 16-year-old Cheryl Fergson was raped and murdered in Bellville High School in Conroe, Texas. Mr. Brandley was the only black among five custodians who worked at the school. Mr. Brandley and Henry “Icky” Peace found the body and were the first suspects in the murder. During their interrogation, Mr. Peace would later testify, Texas Ranger Wesley Styles told them, “One of you is going to have to hang for this.” Then turning to Mr. Brandley, he said, “Since you’re the nigger, you’re elected.”[8]

            Mr. Brandley passed a polygraph test in which he asserted his innocence, but Ranger Styles was unconvinced. Besides, the three other custodians – Gary Acreman, Sam Martinez, and John Sessum – all provided alibis for each other and made statements implicating Mr. Brandley in the crime.

            The three claimed to have seen the victim, Ms. Ferguson, enter the girls’ bathroom which Mr. Brandley then approached with several rolls of toilet paper. They warned Mr. Brandley that a girl was in the bathroom, but he said that he was going into the boys’ bathroom. Then, the three did not see Mr. Brandley for about 45 minutes. Soon afterward Ms. Ferguson was discovered to be missing and school employees and administrators began looking for her. Mr. Peace noted that when the search for the girl began Mr. Brandley immediately went to the loft, found the body, and calmly checked for a pulse. All four janitors agreed that only he had keys to the auditorium where the body was found.

            Mr. Brandley acknowledged he had disappeared for about 30 minutes to smoke a cigarette and listen to music. He also noted that a number of people had master keys to the building and that the doors near the stage were usually propped open with a two-by-four. Ranger Styles charged him with the crime.

            Mr. Brandley’s trial began in December before on all-white jury. There was no physical evidence linking him to the crime. Incredibly, sperm samples recovered from the victim’s body had been destroyed without first being tested to determine if Mr. Brandley could have been the source. Or, they may have been tested and destroyed since they failed to incriminate him. There was a fresh blood spot on the victim’s blouse that did not come from her or Mr. Brandley (the spot was type A; he was type O).

            The jury at the initial trial was hung, and the judge was forced to declare a mistrial. The name of the holdout juror was promptly leaked to the media. Harassing and threatening calls ensued, with one caller warning, “We’re going to get you, nigger lover.”

            At Mr. Brandley’s second trial one of the custodians, John Sessum, did not testify because he now refused to go along with the other two custodians’ testimony even though prosecutors threatened to charge him with perjury if he changed his own. But the prosecution came up with a new witness, Danny Taylor, who had worked briefly at the school as a janitor before being fired. He testified that Mr. Brandley had once commented, upon seeing a group of white girls walk by, “If I got one of them alone, ain’t no tellin’ what I might do.”

            Dr. Joseph Jachimczyk, medical examiner, testified that the victim had died of strangulation and that Mr. Brandley’s belt could have been the murder weapon. District Attorney James Keeshan noted that Mr. Brandley worked in a funeral home and might have been a necrophiliac who had sex with the body after its demise. The jury found Mr. Brandley guilty and sentenced him to death. According to an employee of the Conroe County judge who presided over Mr. Brandley’s trial, the trial judge set his execution date on another employee’s birthday as a “present.”[9]

            Eleven months after his conviction, Mr. Bradley’s apellate lawyers discovered that evidence of his innocence had disappeared while in the possession of the prosecution – including a Caucasian pubic hair and other hair found on Ms. Ferguson that could not have come from Mr. Brandley. Also missing from evidence were photographs taken of Mr. Brandley on the day of the crime showing that he was not wearing the belt which the prosecution claimed to be the murder weapon. Altogether 166 of the 309 trial exhibits had vanished.[10] The missing evidence was troubling given the pre-trial destruction of the semen sample from the crime scene. No blood sample or hair sample were acquired from any of the four white janitors to see if they matched samples from the crime scene.

            The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals didn’t care, and responded to Mr. Brandley’s appeal, “No reasonable hypothesis is presented by the evidence to even suggest that someone other than [Brandley] committed the crime.”[11]

            But then a new suspect emerged. Brenda Medina, who lived in nearby Cut ‘n’ Shoot, Texas, told a neighbor that her former live-in boyfriend, James Dexter Robinson, had told her in 1980 that he had committed such a crime. She told District Attorney Peter Speers III ( who had succeeded D.A. Keeshan) about the confession, but D.A. Speers dismissed her story and never told the defense that she had contacted him.

            So she told the defense, and the defense asked for a new evidentiary hearing. Ms. Medina testified as to Mr. Robinson’s confession. Also, the father-in-law of Mr. Acreman (one of the three custodians) testified that Mr. Acreman had told him where the victim’s clothes were hidden two days before the authorities found them. The defense suspected that Mr. Acreman and Mr. Robinson had perpetrated the crime together. Then John Sessum, the custodian who had testified against Mr. Brandley at the first trial but not at the second, changed his testimony. He now said that he had seen Mr. Acreman follow Cheryl Ferguson up a staircase leading to the auditorium and then heard her scream “No!” and “Don’t!” Later that day, according to Mr. Sessum, Mr. Acreman had warned him not to tell anyone what he had seen. But Mr. Sessum told Wesley Styles, the Texas Ranger and chief investigator. Ranger Styles threatened him with arrest if he didn’t tell a story consistent with Mr. Acreman’s.

            Mr. Brandley was granted a new trial, and now Rev. Jim McCloskey of Centurion Ministries in Princeton, New Jersey was involved. Working with a private investigator, McCloskey obtained a video-taped statement from Mr. Acreman stating that Mr. Robinson had killed Cheryl Ferguson, and that Mr. Acreman had seen him dump her clothes in a dumpster. Mr. Acreman then recanted the testimony, but two witnesses came forward to testify that he had told them that he knew who had killed Ms. Ferguson, that it wasn’t Mr. Brandley, but that he wouldn’t say who it was. Another witness testified that someone looking like Mr. Acreman was seen leaving the area where Ms. Ferguson was last seen alive.[12] Mr. Robinson and Mr. Acreman both had Type A blood, the type found on Ms. Ferguson’s blouse. Since Mr. Brandley was to be executed in six days, the judge granted a stay.

            Texas Ranger Styles admitted that even before he had interviewed any witnesses, Clarence Brandley was his only suspect. When asked why he had not obtained a hair sample from Mr. Acreman and Mr. Robinson to compare with the ones found on the victim, Ranger Styles just stammered, “Let’s say I didn’t do it and it wasn’t done, and why it wasn’t done, I don’t know.”

            On October 8, 1987 Special State District Judge Perry Picket recommended that the Court of Criminal Appeals grant Mr. Brandley a new trial, writing, “The litany of events graphically described by the witnesses, some of it chilling and shocking, leads me to the conclusion that the pervasive shadow of darkness has obscured the light of fundamental decency and human rights.” He added, “No case has presented a more shocking scenario of the effects of racial prejudice, perjured testimony, witness intimidation, and an investigation the outcome of which was predetermined.”[13] Fourteen months later, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, in a very close vote, granted Mr. Brandley a new trial.[14] The prosecution appealed, delaying the trial another ten months. Finally, the U.S. Supreme Court intervened on October 1, 1990 and Clarence Brandley was freed.

            No Texas official involved in the case has apologized or been punished. The true murderer of Cheryl Ferguson has never been apprehended. Had any arrest occurred, it would have been extremely difficult to secure a conviction due to the loss of evidence by the prosecution.

            Mr. Brandley had spent nine years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit. But the state of Texas offered him no compensation; instead after his release it began docking his wages to collect $25,640 in back payments on child support he had missed while in prison, even though both his children were now grown. Janece Keetch, spokeswoman for the Attorney General’s Office Child Support Division, said her office was only enforcing the law in pursuing the payments. “The obligation for child support does not go away,” she commented.[15]

            You get what you pay for. Theoretically, capital trials (and all criminal trials) should be decided based on the guilt or innocence of the defendant. But all too often, the legal defense provided determines whether or not the accused is executed or released.

            Federico Macias was charged with a double murder which occurred during an El Paso burglary. The case against him was rather weak. The prime witness in the case was also a suspect who was allowed to plead to a lesser charge in exchange for testifying against Mr. Macias. The man first told a grand jury that he had remained in a car while Mr. Macias went inside and murdered the victims; later he admitted that he had gone into the victims’ home and tied one of them up, though he still insisted that Mr. Macias had committed the murders.[16]

            Mr. Macias was represented by court-appointed lawyers who were poorly paid and given only $500 for investigators and expert witnesses. The prosecution’s funds, on the other hand, were virtually unlimited. His attorneys didn’t do so well. Conflicting testimony by a jailhouse snitch and a young girl went unchallenged. His own attorneys failed to call a disinterested, unrelated alibi witness who would have placed Mr. Macias far from the scene of the crime. (This testimony alone could have secured his acquittal.[17]) Mr. Macias was found guilty and sentenced to death in 1984.

            On appeal, Mr. Macias’ case was picked by a large, powerful law firm which donated its own resources to his defense. The law firm spent $11,599 for expert testimony and pursued leads that the original defense team had neglected. An eyewitness was located who said that Mr. Macias was not either of the two men she saw near the victims’ house. The law firm also had the alibi witness testify in appeal hearings. They produced a 173-page petition that convinced two federal courts that Mr. Macias had been wrongly convicted. He was granted a new trial.

            All in all, the law firm had spent over $1,000,000 of its own money. It was this investment that secured Mr. Macias’ release. Reviewing the performance of his original, poorly paid attorneys, the federal court stated that the trial performance of Mr. Macias' lawyer "fell outside the range of reasonable professional conduct, and [Mr. Macias] was prejudiced by counsel's shortcomings." On appeal by the state, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the federal court decision. The opinion noted that "[w]e are left with the firm conviction that Macias was denied his constitutional right to adequate counsel in a capital case in which actual innocence was a close question. The state paid defense counsel $11.84 per hour. Unfortunately, the justice system got only what it paid for."[18]

            When prosecutors presented the evidence in the case to a new grand jury, it found that there was insufficient evidence to even indict Mr. Macias. He had been arrested in 1984. After ten years on death row he was released in February 1993. He now works as a landscape gardener in rural Mississippi. “I’ve had some of the worst legal representation and some of the best,” he says. “Money makes a big difference.”[19]

            One who got out under Governor Bush. In the spring of 1977 a library clerk named Linda Jo Edwards was having an affair with her boss, James Mayfield, who was Dean of Library Sciences at Texas Eastern University (now the University of Texas at Tyler). They broke up. On May 26 Ms. Edwards attempted suicide and left a note identifying Mr. Mayfield as her closest companion. News of the affair reached the university and Mr. Mayfield soon resigned. His family became enraged at Ms. Edwards; police records revealed that Mr. Mayfield’s daughter, Louella Mayfield, had repeated threatened to kill Ms.Edwards.

            On June 9, 1977 Ms. Edwards and Mr. Mayfield were seen arguing. That night, Ms. Edwards was brutally raped, mutilated, and killed. Her underwear was stained with semen, but this was before the days of DNA testing. Mr. Mayfield was cleared by police as his family provided an alibi.

            Police interviewed Kerry Max Cook, a new neighbor of Ms. Edwards, on the grounds that his fingerprints were found on her sliding glass door. He explained to the police that he and she had met at the pool and gone to her apartment for a drink. But the police believed that Mr. Cook fit the psychological profile of a killer who was young, homosexual, and hated women. (At the time, Mr. Cook was bisexual. Currently, he is in a heterosexual marriage.) Mr. Cook had minor brushes with the law, but no record of violence. Nevertheless, he was arrested and charged with the crime.[20]

            There were numerous problems with the first trial. Mr. Cook’s friend Robert Hoehn told a grand jury that he and Cook had spent a quiet evening together the night of the murder. But at trial, he said the two had sex and watched a cable TV movie that sent Cook into a “sexual frenzy,” providing prosecutors with a motive for the murder. Jurors weren’t informed that his testimony had changed.

            Ms. Edwards’ roommate Paula Rudolph told police after the crime that she had seen a silver-haired man with medium-length hair in the apartment that night, and assumed it was Mr. Mayfield. But at trial she said it was Mr. Cook she saw, although he had long, dark hair at the time of the murder.

            Edward Jackson, another murder suspect who shared a cell with Mr. Cook while both awaited murder trials, testified that Mr. Cook had confessed to the crime. Mr. Jackson received only a two-year sentence for his homicide, a penalty which defense attorneys assert was payment for his testimony.[21] (Freed from prison, Mr. Jackson killed two more people and is now serving two life sentences without parole in Missouri. There, he confessed to reporters that he had lied on the stand in Mr. Cook’s trial.[22])

            A Tyler police detective testified that Mr. Cook’s fingerprints were left at the scene at the time of the crime. He was later admonished by a professional group which denied that fingerprints could be so precisely dated. Police hid evidence corroborating Mr. Cook’s claim that he had entered Ms. Edwards’ house a few days earlier at her invitation.[23] The prosecutor noted that the victim was missing body parts, and suggested that Mr. Cook might have eaten them. One juror vomited.

            After a short deliberation, the jury returned a guilty verdict and death sentence. Mr. Cook was moved to death row. He appealed and lost in 1987. He appealed again in 1991 and won on the basis of erroneously admitted psychiatric testimony. At his second trial in 1992 the jury split 6-6 and a mistrial was declared. At his third trial in 1994 Mr. Cook was found guilty and given a death sentence. His third appeal was successful, with the appeal court stating that “Prosecutorial and police misconduct have tainted this matter from the outset. It’s taint, it seems clear, persisted until the revelation of the State’s misconduct in 1992.”[24] Mr. Cook was released from prison to await his fourth trial. In 1999 the District Attorney offered him a deal: plead guilty, get time served, and go free. Mr. Cook refused. They compromised: plead no contest (which is not an admission of guilt, but not an assertion of innocence) and go free. Mr. Cook opted for freedom.

            DNA testing had been available for years. But it wasn’t until two months after his release that DNA testing was performed on the semen from Ms. Edwards’ underwear. The tests came back negative: Mr. Cook was not the murderer. When asked if investigators would compare the DNA results to that of Mr. Mayfield, the Assistant District Attorney replied, “We already have a conviction [in the person of Mr. Cook, who’s DNA didn’t match that of the perpetrator]. We have no plans to pursue the case any further.”[25] Mr. Mayfield now works for the Harris County Sheriff’s Department.[26] His DNA has never been tested against that of the perpetrator.

            Mr. Cook petitioned for a pardon from Governor Bush and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, but did not receive one. In the meantime Mr. Cook had spent 20 years on death row before being cleared, the second longest of all exonerated death row inmates. Life on death row was somewhat difficult. Rumored to be homosexual, Mr. Cook was repeatedly raped. Bullies held him down and carved demeaning words into his body. He attempted suicide. At one point he came within eleven days of being executed. Of his colleagues on death row, 141 were killed while he awaited his own execution. Since he could read and write, he wrote many of the farewell letters to their families.

            Mr. Cook has a strange double role in American culture: his brother was a murder victim before Mr. Cook was wrongfully convicted of homicide. So Mr. Cook has two very different perspectives on the death penalty, as one who once supported it in a desire for revenge, and then was threatened with it for 20 years although innocent of the crime. He has now given up his thirst for retribution. Ironically, his brother’s killer served only three years in prison.[27]

            More. There have been other Texas inmates released from death row on the basis of factual innocence. James Whitmore in 1979, Claude Wilkerson in 1983, Vernon McManus in 1987, John Skelton in 1990, Mark Cass in 1993, and others.[28] The death penalty system which sent Gov. Bush condemned inmates was also the death penalty system which wrongfully convicted condemned inmates. But neither he nor anyone closely involved with the process has ever admitted this fact.

            Death penalty supporters like Gov. Bush say that the release of innocent individuals proves that the system works. They rarely ask the released inmate how he or she feels about the system after spending so many years inside it, threatened with death. They rarely inquire as to how an innocent person ended up on death row in the first place. And most frighteningly, they rarely consider the most important question: are there innocent persons on death row who aren’t being released, but executed?