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Exonerees call for Texas innocence commission
Posted: September 11, 2007 3:41 pm
Nine people exonerated after serving years in prison for crimes they didn’t commit met with students at Texas Wesleyan School of Law on Saturday to tell their stories and to call for the creation of a state innocence commission. Six states currently have such panels, which work to review and recommend criminal justice reforms aimed at eliminating wrongful convictions. Among the speakers on Saturday was Anthony Robinson, who spent 10 years in Texas prison before DNA testing proved his innocence.
Since Texas has one of the nation's largest prison systems and routinely puts inmates to death, Robinson said he doesn't understand why Texas doesn't have a similar agency.View a map of the six states with innocence commissions, and read more about the Innocence Project’s recommendations for the creation of these panels nationwide.
A bill to establish a Texas Innocence Commission did not pass during the last legislative session. The proposed nine-member commission would have had the authority not only to review court documents, but also to call witnesses about what went wrong with the case.
"If Texas is to remain great, we need to step up and fight the good fight," Robinson said. "This is not a set of isolated incidents. There have been a lot of bitter tears shed."
Read the full story here. (Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 09/09/07)
Read more about Anthony Robinson’s case.
Tags: Anthony Robinson, Innocence Commissions
Anthony Robinson celebrates seven years of freedom today
Posted: November 14, 2007 3:45 pm
After spending 13 years fighting to clear his name, Anthony Robinson was exonerated on November 14, 2000 in Houston after DNA testing proved his innocence. Robinson was convicted of sexual assault in 1987 and sentenced to 27 years. He would spend ten years behind bars and three on parole before he raised his own funds to pay for private DNA testing. Robinson’s 13-year struggle for freedom ended in 2000, when the state conducted its own DNA test, confirming his innocence and leading to his exoneration.
At Robinson’s trial, the prosecution’s case relied heavily on the victim’s identification of Robinson as her attacker. Though Robinson offered to provide police with a blood sample to prove his innocence, at the time of his trial DNA testing was not yet admitted as evidence in Harris County, Texas, where Robinson was tried. Robinson was thus convicted largely on the basis of eyewitness testimony. Eyewitness misidentification is one of the major causes of wrongful conviction.
Other exoneration anniversaries this week:
Friday: Donald Reynolds, Illinois (Served 11 years, Exonerated November 16, 1997)
Billy Wardell, Illinois (Served 11 years, Exonerated November 16, 1997)
Tags: Anthony Robinson
The Texas Exonerated
Posted: October 27, 2008 4:05 pm
A feature in this month’s Texas Monthly profiles 37 people cleared with DNA testing after serving a combined 525 years in prison.
The first thing you notice is the eyes—they all have the same look in them, the look of men accustomed to waking up every morning in a prison cell. These 37 men spent years, and in some cases decades, staring through bars at a world that believed they were guilty of terrible crimes. But they weren’t. Each was convicted of doing something he did not do. It’s hard to characterize the look in their eyes. There’s anger, obviously, and pride at having survived hell, but there’s also hurt, and a question: “Why me?”Visit the Texas Monthly website for video of a photoshoot with 21 exonerees and audio slideshows telling the stories of more than a dozen.
The short answer is simple: People make mistakes. Most of these cases share a common story line: A woman, usually a traumatized rape victim, wrongly identifies her attacker. Sometimes her testimony is backed by rudimentary serology tests. Sometimes the cases are pushed too hard by aggressive police officers or prosecutors.
Tags: James Giles, Entre Nax Karage, Carlos Lavernia, Brandon Moon, Christopher Ochoa, Anthony Robinson, Ronald Taylor, Patrick Waller, James Waller, Gregory Wallis
Eight years free
Posted: November 14, 2008 4:52 pm
Anthony Robison spent ten years in prison for a rape he did not commit and thirteen years fighting for the DNA testing that would finally exonerate him. Today marks the eighth anniversary of his exoneration.
On the day of the crime, Robinson was picking up a car for a friend at the University of Houston. University police blocked his car and accused him of raping a woman. According to the victim, her attacker was a black man wearing a jacket. Despite the victim stating the perpetrator had a moustache, which Robinson did not, he was brought in for questioning. No physical evidence linked him to the crime. Based solely on the victim’s testimony, Robinson was sentenced to 27 years in 1987. When reflecting on how he felt at the time of his wrongful conviction, Robinson said, “It was not so much the fear of imprisonment. It wasn’t so much the fear of what was going to happen. Everything that I had lived for, everything that I had done had been boiled down to — we think you’re a rapist with no evidence whatsoever other than your skin and someone saying you did this.”
After serving ten years of his sentence, he was paroled and began raising funds to obtain DNA testing on the evidence used in his trial. He saved $1,800 through working jobs such as an order clerk at a local oil field supply company and other temporary jobs. Although he was a college graduate and a former Army officer, his status as a registered sex offender excluded him from higher paying jobs. Robinson hired an attorney, Randy Schaffer, and obtained access to DNA testing on evidence in his case. The results proved what he had known all along – another man had committed the crime.
On November 14, 2000, Governor George W. Bush pardoned Robinson. Since his exoneration, Robinson has spoken to lawmakers and the media, playing a key role in the passage of a law in Texas compensating the wrongfully convicted after their release.
Robinson went on to graduate from the Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University, and currently works in international law.
While Robinson worked on parole in order to pay for DNA testing, many others are unable to pay for the expensive tests. Make a donation today to help the Innocence Project pay for DNA testing for our current clients.
Other exoneration anniversaries this week:
David Brian Sutherlin, Minnesota (Exonerated 2002)
Paula Gray, Illinois (Served 9 years, Exonerated 2002)
Donald Reynolds, Illinois (Served 9.5 years, Exonerated 1997)
Billy Wardell, Illinois (Served 9.5 years, Exonerated 1997)
Tags: Texas, Anthony Robinson
Nine Years After Exoneration, Practicing Law Across Borders
Posted: November 13, 2009 3:45 pm
Anthony Robinson spent ten years in prison for a rape he didn't commit and 13 years fighting for the DNA testing that would finally exonerate him. Today, he is a successful attorney practicing in China and Texas and Saturday marks the ninth anniversary of his exoneration.
An eyewitness misidentification played a key role in Robinson’s wrongful conviction. On the day of the crime, he was picking up a car for a friend at the University of Houston. University police blocked his car and accused him of raping a woman. According to the victim, her attacker was a black man wearing a jacket. Although the victim said the perpetrator had a mustache and Robinson didn’t, he was brought in for questioning. No physical evidence linked him to the crime. Based almost entirely on the victim’s testimony, Robinson was convicted in 1987 and sentenced to 27 years in prison.
He would later reflect on the feeling of being wrongfully accused: “It was not so much the fear of imprisonment. It wasn’t so much the fear of what was going to happen. Everything that I had lived for, everything that I had done had been boiled down to — we think you’re a rapist with no evidence whatsoever other than your skin and someone saying you did this.”
After serving ten years of his sentence, he was paroled and began raising funds to obtain DNA testing on the evidence used in his trial. He worked a variety of temporary jobs to raise the funds for DNA testing. Although he was a college graduate and a former Army officer, his status as a registered sex offender excluded him from higher paying jobs. Robinson hired an attorney, Randy Schaffer, and obtained access to DNA testing on evidence in his case. The results proved what he had known all along – another man had committed the crime.
On November 14, 2000, Governor George W. Bush pardoned Robinson. Since his exoneration, Robinson has spoken actively about the issue of wrongful conviction to lawmakers and the media and played a key role in the passage of a law in Texas compensating the wrongfully convicted after their release.
After Robinson was cleared, Texas State Senator Rodney Ellis and other Houston attorneys helped raise funds for him to attend law school. He graduated from the Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University in 2004, and currently works in international law. He is also a member of the Innocence Project of Texas Board of Directors and the Texas Exoneree Council.
Other exoneration anniversaries this week:
Bruce Dallas Goodman, Utah (Served 19 Years, Exonerated 11/9/04)
Joseph White, Nebraska (Served 19 Years, Exonerated 11/10/08)
David Brian Sutherlin, Minnesota (Exonerated 11/13/02)
Paula Gray, Illinois (Served 9 years, Exonerated 2002)
Tags: Anthony Robinson