This week, the Innocence Project of Texas learned that DNA testing confirms Johnson’s story. Results of the test exclude Timothy Cole as the perpetrator, and they also establish Johnson as the actual guilty party. If Innocence Project of Texas attorneys are successful in obtaining a court of inquiry on behalf of Timothy Cole’s family, Cole’s could be the first posthumous exoneration in Texas history.

For more information about the crime, Cole’s sentence, and Johnson’s confessions, please visit the following feature series currently running in the Lubbock Avalanche Journal:

• Part 1: Hope Deferred: Search for Lubbock Rapist Sends Family on Nightmare Journey
• Part 2: Hope Deferred: Tim Cole Sat in Prison While Another Man Kept Silent About the Truth…
• Part 3: to be released on Monday, June 30
  

(DALLAS – June 26, 2008) – Today, the Dallas County District Attorney’s (DA) Office announced that Patrick Waller, 38, is the County’s latest wrongfully convicted citizen. Waller, who is represented by Gary Udashen, has spent the past 16 years in prison and was serving a life sentence for aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon, along with two 30-year sentences for aggravated kidnapping which arose from the same incident. He is the 18th person in Dallas County cleared of crimes by DNA evidence.

“Technological advances in science have proved another Dallas County man’s innocence and identified the actual perpetrator, but because the statute of limitations has run on these offenses, the State cannot prosecute the two men who did this 16 years ago,” said Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins. “This is a perfect example of why I plan to address the current statute of limitations on certain offenses during the 2009 Legislative session in Austin. It is a gross understatement to say that we are displeased with the fact that we cannot seek justice for the victims in this case because of the laws back in 1992.”

On the night of March 25, 1992, a man and his wife were abducted from the West End in downtown Dallas at gunpoint by two men. This occurred as the couple was returning to their parked vehicle. The two abductors kidnapped the couple in their vehicle, forced one of the victims to drive to an ATM in the Oak Cliff community of Dallas and then forced them to withdraw the maximum amount of cash that could be withdrawn from the bank account in one transaction, which was $200. The two abductors then made them drive to an abandoned house. The two men forced the couple inside the house at gunpoint, made them disrobe, tied them up in the basement and sexually assaulted the woman.

Testimony from Mr. Waller’s trial reveals that sometime during this episode, another couple drove up to the abandoned house and the man got out of the vehicle to relieve himself. One of the abductors, identified in court during the 1992 trial as Waller, approached the couple, forced them inside the house at gunpoint and assaulted them with his Tech 9 firearm. The second couple also was forced to disrobe and tied up in the basement with the first couple. The woman from the second couple made a remark about her feminine hygiene product and, at about the same time, a DISD security officer drove past the house — both of which, apparently contributed to scaring the two abductors off without sexually assaulting the second woman. One abductor left the scene in the first couple’s vehicle and the other abductor left in the second couple’s vehicle.

Approximately one week later, Waller’s photo was put in a photo line-up by the Dallas Police Department for reasons that are unclear and three of the four victims picked him out as one of the abductors, resulting in Waller’s arrest. The testimony at trial indicates that the fourth victim (the woman who was sexually assaulted) later picked him out of a live line-up.

There was never a second suspect. Waller testified at his trial that he had nothing to do with the offense and knew nothing about it. He also presented alibi witnesses; however, the jury convicted him and sentenced him to life in prison for aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon.

As part of the Conviction Integrity Unit’s DNA Review initiative, the DNA from the sexual assault kit in Waller’s case was tested late last year (2007). Testing was paid for by the Innocence Project of Texas. The DNA test results concluded that there was only one male profile present and that profile was not from Patrick Waller. During the DA’s investigation, the Conviction Integrity Unit ran the unknown male profile through the Texas Department of Public Safety’s (DPS) CODIS Convicted Offender File, which is a national database of DNA profiles from convicted offenders.

Through CODIS, the unknown male profile came back as a match to Byron Bell, who when confronted about the 1992 crime, confessed to committing the offense. Bell said that his co-actor in that offense was, a 19-year-old (at the time of the offense) African-American male named Mondo Green, whom he had not seen since the night of the offense. Bell later passed a polygraph test as to the identity of his co-actor. Bell also said that he had a 9 mm Glock that night but never carried or used a Tech 9 and did not remember Mondo having one.

The DA’s Office, working with the Dallas Police Department in reinvestigating the case, established that a man by the name of Lemondo Simmons had been associated with the address where Bell said Mondo Green’s grandmother lived. After Bell passed a polygraph as to the identity of his co-actor, they found Simmons and the State subpoenaed him to appear before the grand jury on June 25, 2008.

Because grand jury proceedings are secret and cannot be disclosed, the DA’s Office is prohibited from releasing any of the testimony from that hearing without a court order. However, it is confirmed by the DA’s Office that Mr. Simmons, who unfortunately cannot be prosecuted for the crimes because of the expired statute of limitations, confessed to committing the offense with Bell in 1992.

A previous request by Waller for post-conviction DNA testing was denied prior to District Attorney Craig Watkins’ administration. Records indicate Waller was the third inmate from Dallas County to file a Chapter 64 motion for post-conviction DNA testing after the statute was passed in 2001.

DNA evidence that recently exonerated one man of a 1985 sexual assault has helped identify a prison inmate who confessed to the crime, the Dallas County district attorney’s office announced Tuesday.

Kenneth Wayne Woodson gave investigators an audiotaped statement last week in which he admitted raping a 19-year-old Richardson woman in her apartment, Assistant District Attorney Mike Ware said.

Prosecutors were led to Mr. Woodson by a match of his genetic profile in CODIS, the state’s DNA database, to physical evidence from the May 7, 1985, rape.

Of the 17 DNA exoneration cases in Dallas County since 2001, this is at least the fifth time genetic testing has also identified the real perpetrator.

Click here to read the rest of the Dallas Morning News article.

Texas is currently home to more DNA based exonerations than any other state in the Nation. Dallas County leads the way in the number of DNA exonerations verified in a single county.

until now, the current and former prosecutors responsible for sending 17 men to prison for years — a total of 282 years to be exact — have rarely been heard from. So Texas Lawyer filed an open-records request with the Dallas County DA’s office to receive the names of all 29 prosecutors who tried and helped convict the 17 men.

The list received from the DA’s office on May 27 includes an impressive roster of attorneys who have gone on to become some of the state’s top prosecutors, criminal-defense lawyers and state district judges. The list even includes Jane Boyle, a former Dallas County prosecutor who now is a U.S. district judge, and Andy Beach, currently one of Watkins’ chief lieutenants. Texas Lawyer called every lawyer on the list — one could not be located and one is deceased — to ask them about the men they prosecuted between 1981 and 2000 who have now been set free from prison. The DA’s office declined to release information about one of the 17 men because his record is expunged, and the trial records of another exonerated man’s case — including the names of the prosecutors — were unavailable, according to Christine Womble, the assistant DA who processed the open-records request.

Some of the lawyers don’t remember details of the cases they tried years ago. But others remember them like the cases happened yesterday. One was even driven to tears when recalling the trial of a man she helped send to prison for 15 years who has since been pardoned…

To read the prosecutors’ comments and details regarding each of the Dallas County exonerations, click here.