Exonerated inmates urge criminal justice changes in Texas
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
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AUSTIN -- When Billy Smith and James Giles were languishing in Texas prisons for crimes they knew they did not commit, they never dreamed that one day they would be standing in the state Senate chamber pleading for reforms.
But Smith and Giles were among nine exonerated men who spoke Thursday at a forum called to examine underlying causes of Texas' wrongful convictions and what can be done to prevent them.
"You have the power. You have the pen," Smith told the assembled legislators, judges, prosecutors and police chiefs.
State Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, who has sponsored criminal-justice overhaul measures for years only to often see them fail, called on Gov. Rick Perry and other state leaders to tackle the wrongful-conviction issue head-on.
He specifically called on Perry, Attorney General Greg Abbott and Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson to establish an Innocence Commission to review and recommend changes.
"It is time to put some muscle behind legislative initiatives and best practices that can be implemented without legislation," Ellis said.
DNA testing has exonerated 33 Texas inmates. Those inmates spent more than 427 years combined in prison.
About 100 people attended the round table organized by Ellis. Among them were Texas Court of Criminal Appeals judges Cheryl Johnson and Barbara Hervey, representing the state's highest criminal court.
State Sen. John Whitmire, chairman of the powerful Criminal Justice Committee, also attended, saying that he gets 300 letters a month from inmates seeking help and that many of them have a valid complaint.
The Houston Democrat said what "keeps him up at night" is that Harris County sends the most people to prison and to Death Row.
"Nothing is more important than clearing the wrongfully convicted," he said.
Sitting front and center in the chamber were the nine exonerated men.
One at a time, they went to the lectern to tell how they were wrongfully convicted through prosecutorial misconduct, faulty eyewitness statements and ineffective legal representation.
They begged the officials to find a way to return integrity to the court system.
Smith is one of 17 men convicted in Dallas County who has since been exonerated. He spent more than 19 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of rape.
His case was based wholly on witness identification. DNA testing led to his release in 2006.
Smith said that while in prison he sometimes considered suicide. He now considers himself a victim.
"It's going to happen again. Our legislature. Our district attorneys. Those in power are failing us," Smith said.
Giles, also of Dallas County, was wrongfully convicted of a 1982 rape based on a faulty photo lineup and witness identification. He spent 10 years behind bars and had to register as a sex offender upon his release.
A subsequent investigation revealed that the lead detective and prosecutor withheld evidence that would have cleared Giles.
Giles and the other men said they have tried to move on with their lives. But it has been tough, they said.
To show that he is trying to move on, Giles tore up his sex-offender registration card and waved his new voter registration card.
"We should open up our minds to do the right thing," Giles said. "Don't worry about the next election."
Among the changes discussed were creating guidelines for photo lineups, videotaping and recording interrogations, and requiring prosecutors to have an "open file policy" that releases evidence to defense attorneys.
Hervey also suggested creating a roving lab that would spot-check and verify the work being done by the state's crime labs. All of these changes, however, will ultimately depend on the money available, she said.
"There are so many things in the system that there is just not one fix," Hervey said. "It has to be a collective effort."
PROPOSED CHANGES
Here are a few criminal-justice bills that have been introduced in the Legislature but did not pass:
Capital defender office -- Establish an office to handle all Death Row inmates' appeals.
Innocence Commission -- Create a nine-member commission to evaluate wrongful-conviction cases to try to determine what went wrong.
Eyewitness identification -- Establish guidelines for photo lineups, including not allowing the supervising case officer to attend.
Taping interrogations -- Require law enforcement agencies to record video or audio of interrogations.
Witness inducement -- Require law enforcement officials to report when witnesses have received payment or a reduced sentence in return for testimony.
Open files -- Require district attorneys to release certain evidence to the defendant within 30 days of indictment.
maxbaker@star-telegram.com
