[Grovenet] Capital punishment? I don't need no stinkin' capital punishment . . . .

[Steven]

While the story is quite sad. What is the connection with capital
punishment? I didn't read in the article that he was on death row.
  -----Original Message-----
  From: grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com [mailto:grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com]On
Behalf Of Bob Browning
  Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2008 2:54 PM
  To: Grovenet
  Subject: [Grovenet] Capital punishment? I don't need no stinkin' capital
punishment . . . .



  This is why I don't believe in capital punishment, what ever the Supreme
Court may say ! ! ! !

  Here, the guy can go free. But, with capital punishment nobody goes home
free!



    Mark Stoltz and became the 17th man exonerated by DNA in Dallas County,
which has more DNA exonerations than any other county in the nation.
    Mr. Woodard, 55, was convicted of murder in the strangulation of his
21-year-old girlfriend, Beverly Ann Jones, who was also raped.

    "I thank God for letting me live through the experience," said Mr.
Woodard.

    Mr. Woodard said he had no immediate plans except to "breathe fresh,
free air" and perhaps eat a hamburger. He has little family, and his mother
died while he was in prison.

    District Attorney Craig Watkins and Judge Mark Stoltz, who released Mr.
Woodard, apologized to him for his wrongful conviction.

    "Unfortunately, you're not getting justice today," Judge Stoltz said.
"You're getting the end of injustice."

    Mr. Woodard could have been paroled, but he refused to admit to a crime
he did not commit. Judge Stoltz said that "spoke volumes" about Mr.
Woodard's character because he considered the truth to be more important
than his freedom.

    Mr. Woodard spent more time behind bars than anyone in the country
cleared by DNA evidence, the Dallas County district attorney's office and
the Innocence Project of Texas said.

    But information that Ms. Jones was with three men - including two later
convicted of unrelated sexual assaults - around the time of her death was
not disclosed to the defense nor was it thoroughly investigated, said
prosecutor Mike Ware, who oversees the Dallas County district attorney's
office conviction integrity unit.

    Evidence that could benefit a defendant is required by law to be turned
over to a defendant, though there is no criminal punishment for not doing
so.

    Mr. Ware said Mr. Woodard received a "fundamentally unfair" trial. He
said he believes the evidence is something that prosecutors at the time
should have investigated, "or at least turn it over so the defense could
investigate."

    Before the district attorney's office agreed that the DNA that
exonerated Mr. Woodard of the rape also exonerated him of the murder - in
itself an unusual step - a forensic pathologist examined the file and
concluded that Ms. Jones was killed about the same time she was raped.

    Her body was found New Year's Eve 1980 near the Trinity River in a
wooded area near South Loop 12. The night Ms. Jones was killed, she was with
Theodore Blaylock, who was convicted of an aggravated rape committed three
weeks after Ms. Jones' death, according to Mr. Ware and testimony from a
1981 post-conviction hearing.

    Mr. Blaylock testified at the hearing that he was drinking with Ms.
Jones, Edward Mosley and Eddie Woodard, who is not related to James Lee
Woodard, one morning in late December 1980.

    Mr. Blaylock said he and Mr. Mosley went with Ms. Jones to a South
Dallas convenience store where Ms. Jones left and got in another car with
three other men. Mr. Blaylock could not provide descriptions.

    In 1982, Mr. Blaylock was shot and killed when he tried to rape another
woman in her car. She pulled a gun from under the seat and shot him several
times, Mr. Ware said.

    Eddie Woodard is now a registered sex offender involved in a brutal
sexual assault, who the district attorney's office said has absconded from
probation. Mr. Mosley's whereabouts were unclear late Monday.

    Prosecutors want to compare DNA from the men to the genetic evidence
from the rape to find the true culprit.

    James Lee Woodard was seeking a new trial at the 1981 hearing, alleging
that prosecutors did not fully disclose information about Ms. Jones'
whereabouts the night she was killed. The judge, John Ovard, who was also
the trial judge, denied the new trial and formally sentenced him.

    The judge and the district attorney's office could have righted Mr.
Woodard's wrongful conviction in 1981, just months later, said Natalie
Roetzel, executive director of the Innocence Project of Texas.

    "It's one of the most disturbing things about this case," she said.
"Essentially, that was ignored because the investigators had the suspect
they wanted."

    Also, a prosecution witness changed his testimony since the Innocence
Project of Texas, a nonprofit independent legal clinic, began investigating
Mr. Woodard's conviction. Ms. Jones' stepfather testified that on the night
she was killed, Mr. Woodard came to the apartment in the middle of the night
looking for her.

    Oscar Edwards now says he believes Mr. Woodard was not the person who
came to his door and did not kill his daughter, Mr. Ware said.

    Mr. Woodard, who has a record for nonviolent crimes, is the second man
cleared by DNA during a review of 350 defendants' requests for DNA tests
that were denied under previous District Attorney Bill Hill.

    Like many in Dallas County exonerated by DNA, Mr. Woodard was convicted
during the era of District Attorney Henry Wade. Current District Attorney
Craig Watkins has repeatedly said he believes that during this time,
prosecutors were more focused on convictions than justice.

    In several handwritten letters, Mr. Woodard begged Mr. Wade to
reinvestigate his case and always maintained his innocence. He said that his
letters were always answered by a prosecutor saying nothing could be done
because a jury convicted him.

    In a March 1985 letter, Mr. Woodard wrote to Mr. Wade: "If you found out
for yourself that I was innocent, would you let me go?"