http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090904/ap_on_re_us/us_exoneree_millionaires
A New Texas law is giving money to people exonerated by DNA evidence and freed. Nice news, for a change, out of Texas
I’m suprised.
I’m assuming that accepting that money requires signing something saying they won’t sue.
Texas leads the nation in exonerations, and my city, Dallas, leads Texas. Why is that? Did we have trigger happy juries? Well, maybe, but Dallas also had policies to preserve evidence for far longer than the required minimums, which means that far after most jurisdictions have lost the ability to re-examine evidence, we still can. I’m not happy these people were victimized by the system, but I’d be much unhappier if the chance to exonerate them had been thrown in the trash during some spring cleaning. It’s considered a black eye to have the most overturned convictions, but I see us as the city who has finally rendered justice to more of the people unjustly convicted than other cities.
Enjoy,
Steven