State Sen. Rodney Ellis of Houston, who called for yesterday’s meeting to discuss Texas’ wrongful convictions At some point, the Texas State Senate’s Web site should contain the audio from yesterday’s “Roundtable on the Prevention of Wrongful Convictions,” held down in Austin. Till then, here’s the Houston Chronicle’s account of…
Dallas criminal defense attorney Robert Guest today documents his trying to clear a ticket case down at the Court & Detention Services Municipal Building on Main Street. A few chuckles in there, chiefly his description of the antiquated equipment attorneys are forced to use — like, oh, the computer that…
As noted yesterday, 60 Minutes on Sunday will profile Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins — specifically, his office’s partnering with the Innocence Project to free prisoners using DNA evidence. Moments ago, CBS News posted a sneak peek at this weekend’s episode: The video clip below is from the first…
Just yesterday, during our weekly staff meeting at Unfair Park HQ, we were wondering when 60 Minutes was going to run its profile of Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins. Turns out, you can set your DVR to this very Sunday, when former KXAS and WFAA reporter Scott Pelley offers…
Dallas County District Attorney’s Office James Lee Woodard, who served 27 years in prison before his release today In the wake of today’s release of James Lee Woodard, yet another Dallas County prisoner exonerated by DNA evidence, State Senator Rodney Ellis of Houston revealed plans for a day-long Summit on…
Mike Ware, head of the Dallas County District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Division Seventeen Dallas County men have been freed from prison following DNA tests that have cleared their names. And till today, those cases have been fairly cut and dry. But Jeff Blackburn, senior counsel for the Innocence Project of…
Two weeks after Thomas McGowan became the 17th Dallas County prisoner released following DNA testing, 55-year-old James Lee Woodard becomes the 18th. On July 17, 1981, Woodard was sentenced to life in prison for the sexual assault and strangulation of a woman found near the Trinity River on New Year’s…
KARE-TV Caught on tape, a man is mugged during a seizure in downtown Dallas. Do not be surprised if this downtown Dallas crime story begins to sweep the nation — hell, it’s already up on a Minnesota NBC affiliate’s Web site. It’s a crime made for TV: Just before midnight…
No, Evan Smith, “exonerated” is not “too strong a word” when describing what happened last week to Thomas McGowan, the 16th Dallas County prisoner freed after DNA testing revealed he wasn’t guilty of the crime for which he’d been convicted and sentenced to prison for 23 years. Smith, the editor…
Clay Graham From left to right: James C. Giles, Thomas McGowan, James Waller and Charles Chatman Clay Graham, a newly minted lawyer with The Innocence Project of Texas, was on hand in the courtroom of Judge Susan Hawk yesterday and snapped photos as Thomas McGowan, wrongfully convicted of burglary and…
Thomas McGowan The most stunning thing about the Thomas McGowan case, as mentioned below, is “how normal it is,” says Jason Kreag, staff attorney with The Innocence Project of New York. Kreag just arrived in Dallas so he could appear with McGowan at a hearing tomorrow afternoon in the courtroom…
Thomas McGowan Moments ago, Unfair Park received a media release from The Innocence Project that says tomorrow afternoon, Thomas McGowan — who’s spent the past 23 years behind bars after being convicted of rape and burglary in Dallas County — will be released from prison, as DNA testing has revealed…
Stumbled across the Dallas Police Department’s YouTube page today — good thing too, as the DPD just posted a video in which some dude breaks into a car parked at 2616 Swiss Avenue, which, I believe, is a recreational facility of some kind. Only, I’m not posting that video, but…
At the end of last year, the U.S. Sentencing Commission adopted Federal Sentencing Guidelines that reduced penalties for crack cocaine offenses, after years of study and debate determined folks popped for crack usually got about three and a half years more prison time than people convicted of powder-cocaine offenses. The…
Beginning on page 138 of today’s agenda for the Dallas County Commissioner’s Court meeting you’ll find Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins’ request for some $823,000 with which he’ll keep funding the county’s efforts to use DNA evidence to free the wrongly convicted. That figure is for two years’ worth…
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement What this photo of the T. Don Hutto detention center doesn’t adequately communicate is the smell of urine and fear. This month brings some interesting and troubling tidbits on our favorite immigrant detention center, the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility — which, as you…
Tomorrow, Shared Hope International, which investigates and documents incidents of sex trafficking across the country, will release the first in a series of reports that detail how 10 American cities respond to victims of the sex trade. Tomorrow’s report focuses on Las Vegas, and an assessment of the Dallas-Fort Worth…
The owners of Texas Hydroponics on Elm Street — right next door to the Sons of Hermann, of course — are offering $300 to anyone who can ID the dumpster-defacing vandals seen in this 10-minute video. I’ll be honest: I didn’t think I’d make it through 38 seconds of the…
On Friday we showed you the Bedford Police Department’s recruitment video — seems only fair, then, to post today the Dallas Police Department’s help-wanted ad, posted this morning to YouTube. Among the endless advancement opportunities: You get to ride bikes, ride horses, wear dreads and buy drugs. Where do I…
Maybe you read a little something about a Dallas County sheriff’s deputy’s patrol car getting a love tap Tuesday night from a drunk driver. Happened around 8 p.m. on State Highway 310, just north of Interstate 20. Thankfully, the Associated Press is distributing, courtesy the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department, a…
Adrian Estaban Sanchez Heredia After the jump, a media release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office — this one, involving today’s guilty plea of 49-year-old Adrian Estaban Sanchez Heredia, a cocaine trafficker who smuggled the drugs from Mexico to Dallas via Laredo. As in: In documents filed in Court, Heredia admitted…
After the jump, an e-mail from Sergeant Walter Clifton of the DPD’s Central Patrol Division concerning a rash of car break-ins ’round the Lower Greenville area — and, hey, just in time for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade this weekend. Though, spoiler alert, this opening paragraph may provide some clues…
