A for­mer Dallas County pros­e­cu­tor has aban­doned his long­stand­ing sup­port of the death penal­ty and is now opposed to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment based on recent exon­er­a­tions in Texas and else­where. James Fry, who pros­e­cut­ed Charles Chatman – a man recent­ly exon­er­at­ed from prison in Dallas County – said he was ​“shak­en to the core” by the high num­ber of exon­er­a­tions through­out the nation and by evi­dence of flawed eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny. Formerly a staunch sup­port­er of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, Fry point­ed to the risk of mis­takes: ​“I don’t think the sys­tem can prove who is guilty and who is inno­cent,” he said in a recent interview.

More evi­dence of such mis­takes has been revealed in a recent study by the Dallas Morning News. The paper con­duct­ed an 8‑month inves­ti­ga­tion into wrong­ful con­vic­tions (pri­mar­i­ly non-death penal­ty cas­es) in Dallas County, prompt­ed by numer­ous exon­er­a­tions, includ­ing that of Michael Blair, who was freed from Texas’ death row in 2008 . DNA test­ing led to cap­i­tal mur­der charges against Blair being dis­missed in late August, bring­ing the total num­ber of peo­ple exon­er­at­ed from death row since 1973 to 130.

Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins recent­ly announced that he will re-exam­ine near­ly 40 death penal­ty con­vic­tions and would halt exe­cu­tions, if nec­es­sary, to give the reviews time to pro­ceed. ​“I don’t want some­one to be exe­cut­ed on my watch for some­thing they did­n’t do,” he explained. Earlier this year, Mr. Watkins grant­ed a request from the Dallas Morning News to review pros­e­cu­tion files to ana­lyze the root caus­es of the wrong­ful con­vic­tions. The paper’s reporters also con­sult­ed more than 70 cur­rent and for­mer pros­e­cu­tors and police offi­cers, defense lawyers, judges, jurors and exonerees, as well as legal schol­ars and those who pur­sue wrong­ful conviction cases.

The News high­light­ed the fol­low­ing find­ings from its 8‑month inves­ti­ga­tion:



•Thirteen of the 19 wrong­ly con­vict­ed men were black. Eight of the 13 were misiden­ti­fied by vic­tims of anoth­er race. Police inves­ti­ga­tors and pros­e­cu­tors in the cas­es were all white, as were many of the juries of the 1980s.

•Police offi­cers used sug­ges­tive line­up pro­ce­dures, some­times pres­sured vic­tims to pick their sus­pect and then cleared the case once an iden­ti­fi­ca­tion was made.

•Prosecutors fre­quent­ly went to tri­al with sin­gle-wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tions and flim­sy cor­rob­o­ra­tion. Some tried to pre­serve shaky iden­ti­fi­ca­tions bywith­hold­ing evi­dence that point­ed to oth­er poten­tial sus­pects.

•Judges, gov­erned by case law that has not kept pace with devel­op­ments in DNA test­ing or research on eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny, rou­tine­ly approved even taint­ed pre­tri­al iden­ti­fi­ca­tions as long as an eye­wit­ness expressed cer­tain­ty in court. As a result, vic­tims who sought only jus­tice sent inno­cent men to prison while the real crim­i­nals went free and com­mit­ted oth­er vio­lent crimes. Taxpayers spent more than $3 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion and incar­cer­a­tion for the Dallas County cas­es alone. And some of the dis­cred­it­ed police prac­tices con­tin­ue to this day.



The three-part fea­ture, includ­ing videos and more, can be viewed here.

(J. Emily, ​“Prosecutor in one of Dallas County’s DNA exon­er­a­tions no longer sup­ports death penal­ty,” Dallas Morning News, October 13, 2008; S. McGonigle, J. Emily, ​“18 Dallas County Cases over­turned by DNA relied on heav­i­ly eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny,” Dallas Morning News, October 12, 2008). See also Innocence, Studies, and New Voices.

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