Gov. Perry wanted to clear his name!!

After reading this article on KXAN, about how Governor Rick Perry granted a posthumous pardon (posthumous meaning: event after someones death) to falsely accused Tim Cole. According to this article this is the first posthumous pardon in the state of Texas;

Tim Cole had been sentenced for 25 years of jail for supposed "aggrevated sexual assualt" on Michele Jean Murray back in 1985. Cole had served 20 years in prison for a crime he didnt commit. On Dec 2nd, 1999 he died of an asthma attack at the age of 39 while still serving his sentence. Yet later his DNA proved he was innocent of the crime he had been incarcerated for several year. Then in Febuary of 2009 the real rapist of Murray turned himself in, Jerry Johnson admitted to having had assulted Texas Tech student in 1985 and also too the resposibility for allowing Cole to take the blame. And now a year later Gov. Perry decides to offer pardon for this injustice.

Well the primarys are tomorrow, why do this today a day before?? Is our governor maybe trying to pull some last minute votes, by showing fellow texans that he does have a heart along with his great hair? Sounds fishy to me... and a little bit to late in my opinion. Not only was the pardon given but Perry also signed the Tim Cole Act, law that will go into force later on this year increase the amount to $80,000 for each year they were wrongfully accused.

But why not do this a year ago?? Regaurdless of if it was for the pull of the votes this goes to show us that there are many lose ends in our law enforcement agencies. Seems like they just want to find someone to pin the fault on and close the case , not caring if they have the right guy. Sen. Rodney Ellis (D) also admitted in his statement that our investigative produres fell short, "Tim's wrongful conviction was due to the use of faulty eyewitness identification procedures, the most frequent cause of wrongful convictions in Texas and the rest of the country. Every law enforcement agency in Texas should have written eyewitness identification procedures based on best practices, but unfortunately only 12 percent have any written procedures at all."

This is truly sad that an innocent individuals life was cut short because of lack of following proper procedures, Cole was 19 when he was sentenced. He never lived life, because it was taken from him wrongfuly. And makes us think of the possibility there might still be of innocent people sentenced in error. Hopefully this opens the eyes of a lot of people and opens doors to correct these error and save innocent lives.