Friday, December 30, 2011

11-12-30 Correction: Texas Governor posthumously exonerates Tim Cole, wrongly convicted

As pointed out by readers, the subject line of the message, distributed on or about December 17, 2011, was in error. 
  • Governor Perry DID NOT posthumously exonerate Cameron Todd Willingham, who was put to death based on a dubious arson investigation.
  • Governor Perry DID hand down the first posthumous pardon in Texas history. Timothy Cole, imprisoned while a 26-year-old student at Texas Tech University, had been failed by the justice system at every turn. But what makes his story particularly gut-wrenching is that he perished in prison even as the real rapist, Jerry Johnson, tried repeatedly to confess to the crime…
To remove any doubt, during this critical election season, in which Rick Perry, Texas Governor and also, as pointed out by a reader, former Bilderberg participant - according to Wikipedia (and caution should be used with any data derived from Wikipedia) - copied below is the entire posting, with the title line corrected.

jz
Where posted, the error was already previously corrected.
__________Texas Governor Posthumously Exonerates Tim Cole, Wrongly Convicted
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A Lubbock police photo of Tim Cole's booking in April 1985. Lubbock Police Department, Courtesy Cole Family
During the past 11 years, [Rick] Perry, [Texas Governor] has presided over 238 executions, including the infamous case of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was put to death based on a dubious arson investigation. In a September debate, Perry famously said that he had lost no sleep over the possibility of an innocent man being executed on his watch.
Yet during his governorship, Texas has exonerated no fewer than 56 people. All had served years, sometimes decades, in prison; five were on death row …

Perry made those remarks during an extraordinary ceremony in which he handed down the first posthumous pardon in Texas history. Timothy Cole, imprisoned while a 26-year-old student at Texas Tech University, had been failed by the justice system at every turn. But what makes his story particularly gut-wrenching is that he perished in prison even as the real rapist, Jerry Johnson, tried repeatedly to confess to the crime…

The tale of Tim Cole and Jerry Johnson, which I investigated for more than a year, reveals a system in which an innocent man, once convicted, has virtually no chance of redemption­even with the guilty man fighting for it. For the thousands of Americans spending years of their lives in prison for crimes they did not commit, the odds couldn't be much bleaker.
LINKS[1] 11-12-13 Schwartzapfel, B., No Country for Innocent Men _ Information Clearing House
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29965.htm
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Joseph Zernik, PhD
Human Rights Alert (NGO)
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Boycott the vote! It only legitimizes the illegitimate... 
11-12-10 Where Should #Occupy Go Next? Civil Disobedience in the Footsteps of Thoreau and Gandhi!
http://www.scribd.com/doc/75348301/
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Secede!
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