Mr. Woodard spent 27 years in a Texas state prison for a murder he didn't commit. Luckily, even though he was incarcerated in the execution capital of the world, Texas, he wasn't executed. He has now been released because DNA data proved he was not the murderer.
From the age of 28 to 55 he sat in prison for a crime he didn't commit.
Dallas man freed by DNA testing after 27 years in prison
By SCHUYLER DIXON, Associated Press Writer
DALLAS - A Dallas man who spent more than 27 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit was freed Tuesday, after being incarcerated longer than any other wrongfully convicted U.S. inmate cleared by DNA testing.
James Lee Woodard stepped out of the courtroom and raised his arms to a throng of photographers. Supporters and other people gathered outside the court erupted in applause.
"No words can express what a tragic story yours is," state District Judge Mark Stoltz told Woodard at a brief hearing before his release.
Woodard, cleared of the 1980 murder of his girlfriend, became the 18th person in Dallas County to have his conviction cast aside. That's a figure unmatched by any county nationally, according to the Innocence Project, a New York-based legal center that specializes in overturning wrongful convictions.
How many innocent people have been put to death?
Fuck all you capital punishment barbarians.
3 comments:
Important post, sagacious, one that we rarely talk about. Research shows not only that capital punishment has not proven to be a deterrent against crime, it sometimes kill innocent people.
One thing we can say about capital punishment is that, given US preoccupation with occupying people's land and killing folks abroad, it's logical. And of course it's the working men and women who do the killing on behalf of the state abroad or get killed by the state at home. There's gotta be a better way.
The only way we'll find a better way is for the proles to wake up, open their eyes and realize that they have been deceived over and over again.
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