The Exonerator

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NOVEMBER 15, 2008

The Exonerator
The Dallas D.A. is Reviewing Old Cases, Freeing Prisoners -- and Riling His Peers
By JENNIFER S. FORSYTH and LESLIE EATON
WSJ


DALLAS -- Craig Watkins may be the only prosecutor in America who is making his name getting people out of prison. As district attorney of Dallas County, Mr. Watkins is using DNA evidence to investigate more than 400 guilty verdicts notched up by his predecessors. His office's Conviction Integrity Unit, launched last year for this purpose, has so far cleared six men wrongly convicted of rape, murder or robbery.

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Mr. Watkins, who became the first African American district attorney in Texas when he was elected in 2006, said in a recent interview that he has been accused of being "a criminal-loving DA, a hug-a-thug DA." But he says such criticism of him and his office misses the point: "We have the constitutional obligation to seek justice." Each exoneration has pushed Mr. Watkins further into the spotlight. He has been interviewed by television crews from around the globe. The Democratic party in Texas considers him a rising star, though Mr. Watkins says he hasn't made any decisions about running for statewide office. But the exonerations have also brought intense scrutiny of the 40-year-old Mr. Watkins, who spent most of his career as a small-time defense lawyer. Critics, including some fellow prosecutors, say he seems too eager to besmirch his predecessors' reputations for the sake of a little publicity. They note that politically, these cases are easy targets: None of them were tried by him.

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He points to his overall record, which is similar to his predecessor's. According to court data, 61% of capital-murder cases his office has handled so far have resulted in convictions; the previous district attorney, Bill Hill, got convictions in 55% of capital-murder cases during a comparable period of time. Mr. Watkins has convicted 48% of murder cases and 34% of sexual-assault cases involving an adult, compared to 48% and 31%, respectively, for Mr. Hill.
Freed After 27 Years One difference is that Mr. Watkins more often opts for alternative methods of punishment. For example, 40% of drug-possession cases have been given deferred adjudication during Mr. Watkins's tenure, compared with 29% for a comparable period under Mr. Hill's. Deferred adjudication typically lets first-time, non-violent offenders avoid jail time by completing probationary requirements such as drug-treatment programs.

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Dallas County has had a string of district attorneys with tough-on-crime reputations stretching back to the legendary Henry Wade. Mr. Wade held the position from 1951 through 1986. He prosecuted Jack Ruby for the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald and was the named defendant in Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court case that decriminalized abortion. Mr. Wade was famous for never losing a case he personally prosecuted, and for getting juries to impose the death penalty nearly every time he asked. His staff of assistants was almost as successful, and all told, won convictions in more than 150,000 cases.

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When he first ran for district attorney in 2002 and again during his successful campaign in 2006, Mr. Watkins focused on the hardships faced by the city's minority communities. He promised to change the culture of local law enforcement to rely more on alternative sentencing. Mr. Watkins did not have strong ties to the white establishment during his political climb, and he was not endorsed by the local newspaper. Few gave his second bid for the district attorney's office much of a chance in 2006 when he faced off against long-time prosecutor Toby Shook, a Republican who had spent 23 years in the district attorney's office. But the political winds in Dallas County were shifting. Unhappiness with the Bush administration's policy on the Iraq war was growing, and trickling down to local politics in this long-time Republican stronghold. Some voters, especially in the growing Hispanic population, were outraged by revelations that in dozens of cases, Dallas police officers framed Mexican immigrants for possessing "drugs" that turned out to be chalk.

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Soon after Mr. Watkins was sworn in, DNA evidence cleared a man in a pending case. Disturbed, Mr. Watkins asked the Innocence Project of Texas to begin reviewing all DNA requests, even those that had been rejected previously. The non-profit group is affiliated with the Innocence Project, a national organization that works with inmates who are trying to prove they were wrongly convicted. In May 2007, Mr. Watkins hired Mike Ware, a longtime criminal-defense lawyer and law professor, to set up and run a formal unit inside his office to conduct investigations and order tests. Reviewing these cases is a painstaking process, in which DNA testing is usually just one step. There are files to pore through and witnesses and victims to re-interview. Each case can take as long as a year to complete. Then there's the matter of finding the real perpetrator if a conviction is overturned.

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122669736692929339.html (subscription)

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