On Friday, 54-year-old Claude Alvin Simmons Jr. and 39-year-old Christopher Shun Scott will be free men for the first time since being wrongly sent to prison in October 1997 for the robbery and murder of Alfonso Aguilar. Two other men will take their places: Alonzo Hardy, who is already in prison serving 30 years for an unrelated aggravated robbery; and Don Michael Anderson, who has been charged with the murder following Hardy's confession to the killing, in which he implicated Anderson.
Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins tells Unfair Park he was first notified one year ago that it was likely Dallas County had sent to prison the wrong men. The Texas Center for Actual Innocence
at the University of Texas at Austin and the University
of Texas at Arlington Innocence Network came to his office in 2008 with the grim news, which Watkins pored over till deciding to turn over the case to his Conviction Integrity Unit and the Dallas Police Department's Cold Case Unit. Bringing in the DPD was a particularly difficult decision, Watkins says; he explains after the jump. He also talks about the ramifications of this case for both his office and DPD Chief David Kunkle's force, and why this one -- the first non-DNA exoneration since Watkins took office -- could have profound implications nationwide.
When did you first get the case?
About a year ago.
What was your reaction when they first handed it over?
I
don't have a reaction at this point. It's something you expect given
recent history. But, you know, I am getting past disparaging how things
were done in the past. It's time to move forward.
What was it
about this case that first caught your attention, that ultimately led
to your collaborating with the Dallas Police Department?
It
had all the red flags: There was photo ID evidence, there was the
chance that someone else might have committed the crime, and the judge
in this case already had an exoneration as a prosecutor. She was
responsible for an exoneration we did early on.
Which one?
I don't recall. But she's a judge now in Cooke County. And even the prosecutor had some issues.
Such as?
[Long
pause] I mean, I am trying to stay away from criticizing ... But when
you first look at these files, the mindset is: "Oh, here's another
claim of innocence." It's only when you see the red flags that you get
the inclination
to go forward. Because far more folks we investigate are guilty than
innocent.
At what point did you decide to get the police department involved?
Early
on, and they were very receptive to some of the ideas on how they
should change their techniques, and this was the perfect opportunity.
And it brings so much credibility to how things should work. And the
person who actually investigated the case is still at the department
and assisted on the reinvestigation. I won't go into who it is, but
when it was clear we had the wrong guys, this guy had tears in his
eyes. A lot of folks involved in these exonerations are not malicious.
They're of the mindset of doing the right things, but often that's
coupled with failed techinques and people who are more concerned with
convictions than justice.
And we'll see more cases like this.
The good thing is, Dallas County and the state of Texas are setting the
model for what should be done. So I expect this case will get a lot of
attention, and I expect you'll see other police departments get
involved in cases like this. We're going to lead the way in how to
dispense justice.
When did you know that not only would you be exonerating Claude
Simmons and Christopher Scott, but also arresting Don Anderson and
charging both he and Alonzo Hardy with the 1997 murder?
I've known about this case since early summer. I had an idea we would
probably get to this point, but I wasn't sure because we were still
investigating. Then we got a confession from the guy in prison [Hardy],
who admitted to everything. We took everyone's polygraph and got a lead
on the guy in Houston. So I've known about this for a while. The thing
we do before we announce this is we make sure everything's in place.
This was a long time coming.
When did Simmons and Scott find out they had been exonerated?
They've been in the Dallas County Jail for a while from prison, so they
knew something was going on. They knew we were re-investigating. But
they found out yesterday, and we'll have a hearing Friday. The fact
they're here and we're talking and we gave them a lie detector, they
knew something was going on. But we didn't tell them for sure.
Did you have any trepidation about taking the case to the Dallas
police? Because you were saying that not only had the District
Attorney's Office messed up, but also the police.
Obviously. Think about it this way. Go back 12 years, and you write a
story and use all of our training on that story, and 12 years later all
that training turns out to be faulty. You have to put aside your ego to
say you were wrong. We went in thinking this would be difficult for
them. But before they got this case there had been 20 exonerations. And
[homicide detective Ken] Penrod led this deal in the Cold Case Unit. He
was savvy enough to understand this is an opportunity for us to shine a
light on the department's techniques, and he took advantage of it. As a
result of Penrod taking this stance ... well, I don't know how
difficult it was for him, but you will see more police officers getting
on board with this, because it makes their jobs easier when dealing
with the public. To acknowledge and rectify wrongdoing gives you more
credibility.
I assume that since you began exonerating prisoners using DNA
evidence, the kind of I'm-innocent letters you get must be piling up ...
It's not as many as you think. You'd think everyone in prison would be
sending us a letter. If I were in prison I would take advantage of
every opportunity. ... But when you look at this historical nature of
the cases we're exonerating, well, this isn't interesting to me, but it
may be to the people who disagree with what we're doing: They have
claimed and maintained their innocence from day one, and that's a
telling sign.
You say "people who disagree with what we're doing," and I see a lot
of that whenever these kind of cases arise -- the sentiment that the DA
should be putting people in prison, not letting them out ...
But that's a political position. For the longest time in Texas and in
Dallas County in particular, people running for district attorney have
campaigned as being tough on crime, and we have said that our success
is based on how many folks we send to prison. And therein lies the
problem. It should be based on results. The job of the district
attorney is to provide adequate public safety, and at the end of the
day, the crime rate is reduced and you've dispensed justice. No one
ever challeged the DA when the crime rate was high as hell and they
were sending innocent people to prison. But the crime rate in Dallas is
lower because of policies we're putting in place. We're getting away
from "tough on crime." It's like I said during my campaign: We're being
smart on crime, and this is another example.
And this could be our biggest exoneration case yet. We're up to 23 now,
and this one is non-DNA. And we brought in the Dallas police. I would
imagine folks around the country will take a long, hard look at this
one.
