link to 60 minutes on exonerations

thanks to steve houseworth for this link to a recent 60 minutes segment on texas exonerations.

about 12 minutes, this segment introduces several dna-innocent men, and raises some important questions. well worth a look.

here's a bit of the transcript:

"I have to wonder after 27 years how did you stand it?" Pelley asks.

"You can only go one day at a time ever. I don’t really know myself. I just did the best I could. Just you know every day I have hope well maybe today will be a better day," Woodard says.

"You had hope?" Pelley asks.

"That’s all a man has," Woodard says. "I had hope for parole. I think I came up about 12 times."

"When you appeared before the parole board what did they say to you?" Pelley asks.

"They always told me, as long as you deny your guilt its saying something about you, you know you are not willing to own up to your deed. And we gonna deny you," Woodard says.

But Woodard refused to admit guilt. "I wasn't guilty," he says.

"You chose truth over freedom," Pelley remarks.

"I mean, a man has to stand for something," Woodard says.

James Woodard became the 17th prisoner in Dallas to be set free after a wrongful conviction. He walked from the courthouse into a hometown he could no longer recognize. At 27 years and four months, he became the longest serving inmate in the nation to be cleared with the help of DNA.

~~~~~
update:

just re-watched this.

it's important not to focus blame on the deceased district attorney to the point that we fail to ask whether the problem is bigger than just this one guy. it is. there's good evidence that this is a systemic problem. there are dna exonerations going on everywhere. we need to examine the system.