STORY: "Kerry Max Cook's exoneration fight gets personel," by reporter Brandi Grissom, published by the Texas Tribune on June 11, 2013.
GIST: "Kerry Max Cook, who spent two decades on death row for a 1977 murder, says Smith County prosecutors are fighting dirty in their mission to stymie his efforts to prove his innocence. In a motion filed Wednesday in Smith County state district court, Cook argues that prosecutors have resorted to lies and fabrications to prevent DNA testing on evidence he hopes will prove, more than 35 years after the crime, that he did not kill Linda Jo Edwards. "Our motion to strike contains an absolutely irrefutable record of deliberate egregious misrepresentations by" prosecutors, Cook said in a prepared statement. Cook, 56, was convicted in 1978 of the rape and murder of Linda Jo Edwards in Tyler. His first conviction was overturned, a second trial ended in a hung jury and a third ended with a conviction that was reversed after a court found it was tainted by prosecutorial misconduct. Before Smith County attempted to try Cook a fourth time, he agreed to a plea deal in 1999. Pleading no contest, he was set free. Subsequent testing revealed another man’s DNA on the victim’s clothes. After Cook's lawyers requested additional DNA testing on evidence in the case, they discovered some evidence had been destroyed and the storage of other evidence had presented questions regarding its chain of custody. The lawyers have asked for a hearing to decide whether the evidence has been so tainted that accurate DNA testing could be impossible. Smith County prosecutors argue the request for a hearing is an effort by Cook to delay the testing because they allege he is worried the testing will confirm his guilt. In their motion to strike the prosecutor’s motion opposing the hearing, Cook’s lawyers say the document is full of misrepresentations and should be stricken from the case record."
The entire story can be found at:
https://www.texastribune.org/2013/01/11/kerry-max-cooks-exoneration-fight-gets-personal/?utm_source=texastribune.org&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Tribune%20Feed:%20None
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
Dear reader: Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following developments relating to this case;
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.
The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.
Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.
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