Dallas County votes to continue funding DNA evidence review team

[RB TexLa]

In 2006 when he won the DA's race I was still living in Dallas county. My wife talked with him on the phone, he was making campaign calls himself raising money and asking for votes. She told him we voted in Louisiana but wished him luck. A few days later he knocked on the apartment door. Having looked through his literature I gave him a check told him we were happy to do something to help him and took him to a few apartments I knew had people registered to vote in Texas (harder to find than you'd think in North Dallas). Part of his campaigning was he was going to be the DA for everyone in Dallas county, he mentioned not guilty people in prison and people who may be unwilling to come forward to report crimes because of immigration status, as well as the normal DA promises of prosecuting criminals, which his office has done very well. What everyone seems to forget in the exonerations is not only has a innocent person been wrongly convicted and incarcerated, but the guilty party has been free and unpunished all the time as well, both betray the cause of justice.




Funding approved for Dallas County District Attorney's DNA review team

11:31 AM CDT on Tuesday, April 1, 2008

By KEVIN KRAUSE / The Dallas Morning News
[e-mail]

Dallas County commissioners voted Tuesday to continue funding District Attorney Craig Watkins’ DNA evidence review team for two additional years, with the help of a foundation grant.

Dallas County will pay $832,392 over the next two years for the salaries of the two attorneys, investigator and paralegal on Mr. Watkins’ conviction integrity team that was formed last year. Commissioners voted 3-1 to continue the funding, with Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield casting the lone dissenting vote. County Judge Jim Foster was absent.

A grant from the Justice, Equality, Human Dignity and Tolerance Foundation will contribute $457,600 toward post-conviction DNA testing. The foundation had stipulated that the grant money would be available only if the county continued funding the four conviction integrity unit positions.

The Innocence Project of Texas is contributing $36,000.

Mr. Watkins brought with him to the meeting three of the 15 men who have been exonerated after being wrongly convicted and sentenced to prison in Dallas County. Mr. Watkins asked James Giles, James Waller and Charles Chatman to stand up while he addressed the commissioners.

“We’re not using this as a political football,” Mr. Watkins told commissioners. “We are blazing a trail here in Dallas County.”

Mr. Giles said after the meeting that the DNA team is needed to keep the guilty in prison and free the innocent.

“This is doing the right thing for Dallas County,” he said.






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