"FEW TRAGEDIES ARE GREATER THAN AN INNOCENT PERSON LOCKED UP IN PRISON. IN THE BIBLICAL STORY OF LAZARUS, JESUS ARRIVES AT LAZARUS' HOME AFTER HE HAS DIED. LAZARUS' GRIEF-STRICKEN SISTERS, WHO HAD SENT FOR JESUS, ADMONISHED HIM, “IF YOU HAD BEEN HERE, OUR BROTHER LAZARUS WOULD NOT HAVE DIED.” AS THE COLE-SESSIONS FAMILY CONTINUES TO HEAL WITH THE BALM OF LOVE THAT KEPT THEM FIGHTING FOR TIMOTHY EVEN IN DEATH, A PARALLEL CAN BE DRAWN BETWEEN COLE AND LAZARUS: IF SOMEONE IN POWER TRULY COMMITTED TO JUSTICE HAD BEEN THERE, TIMOTHY COLE NEVER WOULD HAVE DIED IN PRISON."
KATHY CLAY-LITTLE: AND SAN ANTONIO, EXPRESS NEWS;
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BACKGROUND: Timothy Cole, whose cause has been championed by state lawmakers and others, was found guilty in the 1985 rape of a Texas Tech student and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. His conviction was based in part on the victim's identification of him as her attacker and what a judge later called faulty police work and a questionable suspect lineup. The victim later fought to help clear Cole's name. Cole died in prison in 1999, at age 39, after an asthma attack caused him to go into cardiac arrest. Following repeated confessions by another man, Cole was cleared by DNA evidence in 2008, and a state judge exonerated him in 2009. His family pursued a pardon, but Perry had said he did not have the authority to grant one posthumously. That changed after Perry announced that he had received legal advice to the contrary.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"It had been almost 10 years since Joyce Ann Brown walked out of a Texas prison after serving most of the previous decade for a crime she did not commit," Cathy Clay-Little's San Antonio, Express News column, published on March 26, under the heading, "Justice is about more than conviction rates," begins.
"Yet her tears flowed as freely as if she had been released yesterday; her pain was just as palpable, it seemed, as it was during the years she lived her tragic ordeal," the column continues.
"The man I interviewed on my radio program had been freed by DNA evidence 17 years earlier, but you couldn't tell 17 years had passed by the rivulets of tears coursing down his face. He seemed unaware of them as he talked about the need for a criminal justice system that cared as much about justice as it did conviction rates.
At least he got out alive.
Timothy Cole did not get out alive. Cole, an Army veteran who was enrolled at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, died halfway through a 25-year sentence for a rape that posthumous DNA evidence and the finally heard confession from the real rapist confirmed he did not commit. Ironically, Cole died of a chronic illness — asthma — that should have caused reasonable doubt as to whether he committed the crime of which he was accused.
Cole's asthma was so bad that it manifested itself when he was around smokers; the rape victim told detectives that the man who raped her chain-smoked.
The actual rapist was a shrewd, cunning and evil man. He was in jail the night Cole was convicted. The rapist said nothing until the statute of limitations had expired and he could not be tried, then he started confessing. No one listened until he finally made contact with Cole's mother, Ruby Sessions, and she began working to at least get her deceased son's good name back. On March 1, Gov. Rick Perry officially granted Cole a pardon.
Still, Perry continues to take actions that could allow another such tragedy to occur. Few tragedies are greater than an innocent person locked up in prison. In the biblical story of Lazarus, Jesus arrives at Lazarus' home after he has died. Lazarus' grief-stricken sisters, who had sent for Jesus, admonished him, “If you had been here, our brother Lazarus would not have died.” As the Cole-Sessions family continues to heal with the balm of love that kept them fighting for Timothy even in death, a parallel can be drawn between Cole and Lazarus: If someone in power truly committed to justice had been there, Timothy Cole never would have died in prison.
The knowledge that Texas' justice system so thoroughly failed Cole — and the rape victim, too — should spur people of conscience to commit themselves to building a justice system that not only convicts the guilty but also protects the innocent. It begins with electing governors, lawmakers, judges and district attorneys whose first commitment is to justice for the innocent."
The column can be found at:
http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/columnists/kathy_clay-little/Justice_is_about_more_than_conviction_rates.html
Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;
