Too Many Wrongful Convictions

Thirty years ago, Cornelius Dupree Jr. (pictured above) was convicted of rape and murder, and was sent to a Texas prison.   He was denied parole at least twice because he refused to admit his guilt.   On Tuesday, he was declared innocent by a Dallas judge after being exonerated by DNA evidence.  

Because of the 30 years the state forced him to spend in prison, Texas now owes him (according to a recently passed law) $80,000 for each of those years.   He will get a lump sum payment of $2.4 million dollars plus an annuity for life.   That may seem like a lot of money to many of us, but it's really small compensation for stealing thirty years of a man's life.

The scary part of this whole story is that Dupree's wrongful conviction is not all that rare an occurrence.   Since 2001, Dallas county has found 21 convicted prisoners to be innocent -- statewide there have been 41 prisoners exonerated.   Dallas has the majority of cases because they have an excellent District Attorney who is willing to examine past cases, and their county crime lab maintains biological evidence for decades after a conviction (and many other counties don't).

This is far too many cases of wrongful convictions -- 41 in just the last ten years.   It makes me wonder how many other innocent people are in prison because their evidence has not been fully examined yet (or has been disposed of by the committing county).   It just goes to show that our system of justice, while better than that of many other countries, still leaves a lot to be desired.

Now a smart person would probably wonder why the state continues to execute prisoners (and Texas leads the nation in executions) when it's justice system is so prone to error.   It would make sense to believe that Texas has executed one or more innocent people in the past and may well do so again in the future.   This is a horrifying thought.   It's bad enough to rob an innocent person of years out of their life, but executing an innocent person is inexcusable.   After looking at these statistics, it would be smart (and prudent) to do away with the death penalty.

But then this is Texas, and the state leadership (composed primarily of Republicans) is not nearly that smart.   I seriously doubt they will even consider doing away with the death penalty, since that would anger the death-lovers in their base.   Far too many Texans are fine with executing a few innocent people as long as they can satisfy their own bloodlust and desire for revenge by continuing to carry out the death penalty.

This doesn't make any sense, but then that's been a hallmark of Texas government in recent years.