Thursday, January 3, 2008

Texas Justice?

Charles Chatman,47,was released from a Texas prison on Thursday after serving 26 years for a rape he did not commit after new DNA testing proved his innocence.Alarmingly,he is just one of THIRTY men in Texas that have been exonerated of criminal charges after DNA testing since 2001 and 15 of those are from Dallas County.Although it was never stated if any of these men were facing the death penalty,it is clear to me that with this many wrongful convictions,that sooner or later they are going to end up executing an innocent person. Officials say that part of the reason for all these exonerations is that Dallas County retains DNA evidence after it is tested so that law enforcement can go back and re-test in the future if they need to do so.
I don't know about the rest of you ,but this is outrageous.So what if he is now out of jail?He cannot get back those 26 years,and on top of that you now have a rape case that is 26 years cold and the man guilty of the crime going unpunished and unchecked.Incidences like this are what is leading more and more states to put a moratorium on the death penalty until the prosecuters and investigators involved in these worngful convictions get their collective shit together and stop trying to close cases at any cost just to keep taxpayers happy.We the people would much rather see the right people behind bars,even if it means it doesn't happen overnight.Anything else is unjust.

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