Busy day at capitol and courts on innocence

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 05, 2009



Today's a busy day on the innocence front in Austin, both at the
capitol and the courthouse.

More than a dozen Texas DNA exonerees, along with students and
boardmembers from the Innocence Project of Texas, will be at the
capitol to promote legislative reforms aimed at preventing false
convictions and providing redress for innocent people currently
incarcerated. Here's a summary of the legislation they'll be
promoting. I'll be spending my day helping with that effort.

Also, this afternoon, Judge Charlie Baird in the 299th District Court
will conduct a court of inquiry to exonerate Timothy Cole.

There's been a lot of good coverage on this case, but if you're not
familar and want some highlights, NPR ran a story this morning and
has previously interviewed Cole's mother, Ruby Cole Session, and
Michele Mallin, the rape victim whose testimony helped secure Cole's
conviction. You can also hear their interview with Jeff Blackburn,
chief counsel for the Innocence Project of Texas. See also a three-
part series titled, "Hope Deferred," that ran last year in the
Lubbock Avalanche Journal.

Tomorrow, there will be a legislative briefing at the capitol
featuring some of the folks involved in the Cole case and a
presentation by Gary Wells, the nation's leading expert on eyewitness
identification errors, plus the Cole hearing will resume (and
presumably, finish) Friday afternoon.

Blogging will be light to nonexistent while all this is going on, but
I should have a lot to say about innocence-related events this week
after we get through the next couple of days.