By Shoshana Guy
Rock Center
Ruby Session’s guests filed in slowly, clasping each other in warm, familiar embraces. Many, who were there to attend her 75th birthday, shared a harrowing history both with each other and the woman they had come to celebrate. “She didn’t adopt us. We adopted her,” said Christopher Scott, who spent 13 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. “She is what all of us dreamed of having, a mom or a loved one who believed in us not part of the time but the whole time, because she believed her son was innocent.”
In 1985, Ruby Session’s son Timothy Cole was accused of raping fellow classmate Michele Mallin near the campus of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. But Session never believed it. “That was not him, that was not him,” Session said. “That was not my child.”
Based on Mallin’s memory of the assailant, the Lubbock Police generated a composite sketch. And when an undercover officer bumped into Cole near the campus, she thought he looked like the sketch. Cole had recently reported a robbery and the police used that excuse to take a picture of him at his house. Experts and family members point to inconsistencies in the line-up. For example, Cole’s background was different and he was the only one looking directly in the camera.
Witness error: How mind tricks can put the innocent behind bars
Based on the eyewitness identification, Cole was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Devastated by the outcome, the family filed appeal after appeal. But in 1999, after serving 13 years of his sentence, Cole died in prison from an asthma attack. He was 39-years-old.
Still, the Session family refused to give up trying to prove Tim’s innocence, and their fight helped to change the criminal justice system in Texas and challenge an element of basic police work, the photo lineup.
Counter to the “live lineups” we see on television, more often than not the detective or officer working the case presents the witness with a five or six-person photo lineup. One of the people in the lineup is the actual suspect and the rest are what are referred to as “fillers,” all chosen to roughly resemble the suspect. However, decades of research suggest that this traditional method is flawed. Nationwide 75 percent of prisoners exonerated by DNA evidence were convicted on the basis of faulty eyewitness identification. As a result some states and law enforcement agencies across the country are beginning to change their procedures.
While there is still a lot of debate around which methods will lead to fewer faulty identifications, many researchers agree that the most important part of the process is who conducts the lineup and how the photos are presented.
Traditionally the detective or officer working the case shows the lineup. The Session family says the detectives working the case “steered” Mallin towards choosing Cole. “The police had tunnel vision,” Cory Session told NBC's Josh Mankiewicz in an interview scheduled to air Wednesday night on Rock Center. “They're going to make it fit no matter the circumstances surrounding the whole case.” The Lubbock Police Department maintains that at the time they were following standard protocol.
Social scientists say that even the most careful officers can give unintentional cues. Many researchers have found that when someone with no knowledge of the case presents the photo lineup, the witness is less likely to experience unintentional or subtle influences that can lead to mistaken identification. The process is referred to as “blind” since the person administering the lineup does not know which one of the photos is the suspect. A landmark decision by the New Jersey Supreme Court last August, pointed to the importance of using a “blind” process.
More controversial in scientific and law enforcement circles is whether or not the photos should be shown sequentially, that is one at a time, rather than all together. “People are naturally wired to make comparative judgments,” said Gary Wells, a psychology professor at Iowa State University who has been advocating for changes to the police lineup process for nearly 30 years. “For most of the tasks that we encounter, comparisons or judgments work pretty well. But for an eyewitness the question is not who looks most like him, the question is, is that the person?”
Last September, Wells helped publish a new study based on actual cases that found that photographs presented one-by-one, by a person unrelated to the case, significantly reduced wrongful identifications.
However, getting the more than 16,000 independent law enforcement agencies across the country to reform is a slow process, in part because many are not convinced the sequential process is the better procedure. While individual law enforcement agencies have changed their policies, currently only New Jersey and North Carolina have statewide mandates that police lineups be conducted blind and sequential.
In 2009, with the help of the Innocence Project of Texas, and eventually Michele Mallin, DNA testing proved Tim Cole's innocence. A year later, Governor Rick Perry made Cole the first person in state history to be posthumously pardoned.
The Session family has continued their fight for Texas’s community of exonerated men. The Tim Cole Act mandates financial compensation for the wrongfully convicted. Cory Session, who is now the Policy Director for the Innocence Project of Texas, helped persuade Texas legislators to pass a law calling on all police departments to create a policy for conducing photo lineups. The law went into effect this past January and, although the procedures each department will adopt has yet to be determined, Session feels the progress made was helped along by his brother Tim.
“Tim made the difference,” he said. “He made the difference in a huge way.”
Editor's notes: NBC News correspondent Josh Mankiewicz' full report, 'Photo ID,' airs Wednesday, April 4, at 10pm/9c on Rock Center with Brian Williams. For more information read “A Plea for Justice: The Timothy Cole Story" by Fred B. McKinley.
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I was once picked up as a suspect in an armed robbery of a health food store, simply becuase the bandit escaped on a bicycle and I was a bicyclist known by the local police (because I'd give the bike cops a hard time for blowing through stop signs). The police took my photograph and used it in a photo lineup - I was one of three possible suspects. I lived in fear for several weeks that the police would come to where I worked and arrest me - they never told me that I was eliminated as a suspect. And as far as I know they never caught the guy. And no, I was not the robber.
I'm a supporter of our law enforcement, but some they get promotions based on convictions which could make them go after innocent people. Police can be hardened and calloused by years of interacting with the worst criminals so that they have no empathy for the average guy and the idea that people are innocent until proven guilty.
A buddy of mine was accused of Rape. Cops literally dogpiled him as he was returning home from work one day. Victim was provided several Photo Montages' with 12 faces on each. One each montage', his face was the ONLY one that was the same. She consistantly picked his photo. DUH!
Regardless of him PROVING through store receipts, witness testimony, etc., that he in-fact was SOMEWHERE ELSE when this rape occured, the Prosecution bulldozed foreward based on the victim's insistance that HE was the one, nothing else just her testimony. (She couldn't even provide a description PRIOR to the montage' session!)
During a session at the police station, a Detective told me in the hallway "I don't think he did it." When he was asked about that comment on the stand, he FLAT OUT DENIED EVER making that comment!!!!! I was LIVID! I stood up and called him a liar, and the Judge had me "excused" from the courtroom.
2 trials, 2 years, hung jury both times and about $60,000 in Attorney's Fees and he FINALLY walked. Prosecution vowed they'd continue, but never did.
Gawd, that's sad. I think there should be some provision to help a guy out with the expenses for defense.
Eyewitness accounts can be reliable, but they also can be very biased and unconsciously fabricated for a number of reasons. I wouldn't throw out the feedback, but it shouldn't be used with absolute certainty.
Many times people "see" what they believe.
Corruption and Cover up is everywhere.....all over the world....so it seems....the wonderful technology of the computer now allows everyone to know what is going on around the country/world......so it is hard not to "see, hear things which happen"...
To fix the system one thing that has to be done is getting rid of the importance conviction rates for LEO and prosecuters. Cops and lawyers don't get to pick their cases and have to face the fact that the suspect might not have done it. Proof in their mind is not proof in the legal sense. We treat conviction rates as a scale on how good a prosecuter is. We don't acknowlege the possibility that a prosecuter with a low rate just had some bad luck and innocent defendants. No, we assume they're doing a bad job and replace them with a lawyer who will convict those SOBs.
There is some merit to this suggestion... but how do you judge if a prosecutor lost because the person was innocent, or because the prosecutor was inept? There needs to be some way to weed out inept prosecutors, as it wouldn't do for the truly guilty to go free because someone wasn't very good at their job. Just another wrinkle to think about.
I was a gang leader and rebel rouser in my youth in the 1950s until I almost went to prison for supposedly forging a payroll check. An eye witness (owner of a smoke shope/poker parlor) had picked me out of a photo line-up and swore I was the person who cashed the check in his shop, a place I have never been in to this day.
Admittingly I was a real pain in the Seattle cops side in those days, and I knew they would like to get me off of the streets. But I never imagined they would try to set me up. However, I first became suspicious when the cops did not attempt to question me after my arrest, and it took me three days just to find out what I was arrested for. The first lawyer I hired tried to get me to plead guilty to a lesser charge which would not get me as much prison time, and he even sent my sister up to convince me after I had told him I did not commit the crime, and would not plead guilty to anything.
I fired that lawyer and got one name Cane that looked and acted like Spencer Tracy (a famous old actor). As soon as I told Cane I did not commit the crime, he said, "ok, you are not going to prison ) and he told me to write the judge and request a lie-detector test which was admissible in court at that time. I wrote the judge but never got a response, at that point Cane told me we were going to trial because the judge was in on the set-up also..........We went to trial and Cane had the so-called eye-witness so confused he could not remember on which day of the week or month the check was cashed or even if he was positive it was me who cashed it. That along with a sample of my handwritting lead the jury to a 'not guilty' verdict............That was the end of my days as a gangsta, I got married, had a family owned a couple legit businesses and lived a pretty normal, but exciting life.
In the final analysis I guess you could say "I was scared straight'
Yes cops make big mistakes, criminals like to blame the innocent, and
rotten family members are often the first to convict us.
Nothing will change without real consequences for misconduct. Give offending prosecutors a taste of the lash on the courthouse steps and make them personally pay compensation to the wrongfully convicted, THEN you will see responsible conduct in the courtroom. If misconduct results in wrongful execution then we need to execute the offending parties. I'll bet you would see a lot of prosecutors lobbying for an end to the death penalty and refusing to ask for it in their cases. BUT if a prosecutor DID go for the death penalty you could be certain he was convinced of the guilt of the accused.
Wanna hear my surprised reaction to another wrongful conviction...*gasp* "Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat"?!?! (in my Etrade Baby voice)
A few years back a poll was conducted asking people if they believed the person arrested for a crime was the person who committed it, 89% of responders said, "yes"......And when people were ask if they believed a person who's mug shot was shown on TV was the one who committed the crime, 96% said, "yes"...........The study showed generally people assume a person arrested for a crime is guilty..........So the burden of proof really lies with the accused
As a retired cop with 30 years of experience, this forum just reinforced my belief that most people hate law enforcement officers with an acidic vehemence that has poisoned any rational attempt to communicate. Most law enforcement officers learn to accept that after the 1st few years on the job. It hurts, but you learn not to care after awhile. It's not because we are hard or callous. The job does that to you as well as the constant blast of hatred we experience from people like many of you on this post. I will not even try and convince those that hold those type of opinions because I can't and I learned many years ago that nothing can open the mind of those that believe that they alone are privy to the truth,they "know" the real "facts" or they have "heard" it from reliable people, or the "system" is set up to convict anyone that the police focus on. First of all, it is indeed your constitutional right to refuse to tell the police your side of the story. It may also be the only chance you will get to convince the jury or judge that you are innocent, but that is your choice. I will be the first to admit that innocent persons end up in prison. However, there are many more guilty people that get away with crime. The system is far from perfect, but it is the best system that humanity has been to come up with to date to protect the rights of both victims and suspects. In case most folks don't know it, there are many crimes that do not leave DNA, trace evidence, or circumstantial evidence that is sufficient to take a case to trial. Most burglaries, auto burglaries, thefts, and other crimes may rely on a combination of circumstantial evidence and eye-witness testimony to even stand a chance of the victim seeing justice. Most property crimes seldom even have enough information to even begin an investigation and all the police can do is to contact the victim if the case is assigned to a detective and see if the report contains all of the victim's loss as victims frequently don't realize that other items were stolen until several days later. Most stolen property is sold on the street. Criminals sometimes will sell it at a pawn shop, but at least in my state, pawn brokers are required by law to see photo ID and keep permanent records of their transactions. Crimes against persons ( such as murder, sexual assault, robbery-each state has it's own statutory name for the offense ) are much more serious crimes and rightly should receive as much attention to solving it as possible. The vast majority of sexual assault and serious child abuse cases usually have only one witness- the victim. Yes, DNA is a very useful tool, especially if the suspect happens to already be in CODIS. However, the suspect will usually say that the sexual act was consensual. Sometimes it is and I have successfully vindicated many suspects who voluntarily came in and gave me a statement. I remember one case in which the suspect had an extensive record of felony convictions. If he had even been indicted, his parole would have been automaticaly revoked even prior to trial. I had already taken an affidavit from the victim as the suspect was a neighbor. However, the suspect began telling me a lot of details about the alleged offense which the victim had left out, such as the fact that she and the "suspect" had been having a sexual affair for several months and she didn't want her husband to find out. This was one instance in which the suspect was exonerated because he decided to talk to the police. In cases where the victim doesn't recant their testimony, these type of complaints I always sent to the District Attorney's office because I don't have the legal authority to either arrest the subject without additional evidence nor can I choose to just ignore the victim's allegations. Police officers enforce penal law, while the DA's office has to consider case law as well, plus decide if the case should go to trial. A lot of the sexual crimes committed against children are not reported for months or even years after it was committed. So, you will often have no DNA evidence at all. Sometimes, a medical exam will yield forensic evidence of tears or scarring that may be consistent with the alleged offense. The only evidence we will have is the victim's statement. Most child victims of sexual assault will know the suspect because he/she is often a close relative or neighbor. The original topic of the post was on the accuracy of witness identification. Yes, there will always be the possibility of false identification. My agency quite using live line-ups over 20 years ago. We used the traditional "six pack" where there are six photographs of people placed in a cardboard folder, so that each photograph is in it's own window. I always placed the "six pack" face down on my desk and then I would always ask the victim to pick it up and see if they recognized the suspect in any of the photos. I always matched the background of the photo and I tried to match age, skin tone, hair style, etc as closely as I could. If the victim identified a suspect, which they rarely did, I would ask them if they were positive that this was the person who committed the crime. "I think" or "he looks like" the suspect, automatically excluded the person.I never asked them to take a 2nd look or ask them if they weren't sure that a certain suspect was the one.If the victim or witness stated that they were absolutely positive, I would then ask them to draw a circle around the photo and sign their name under the photo, plus I would take an affidavit where the person was swearing that they were positive that this was the person. Then and only then would I use this as evidence against a person.What the "experts" want besides tying up another detective in the case, solely to hand the witness the photographs, is to allow the witness one chance to identify the suspect. The person would not be allowed to look at the photo a 2nd time, nor would they be allowed to compare 2 photos. This is unfair to the victim because it puts an almost impossible burden of proof on the victim and would prevent most "stranger" crimes from ever be solved, short of DNA. In the case of a stranger abducting or sexually assaulting a child, there would be absolutely no convictions without DNA. Even if the witness makes a positive ID on a suspect during the investigation, it is useless unless they can make the identification in the courtroom, often 2-3 years after the crime occurred. I have been worried my whole career of contaminating a witness because then we have two wrongs committed: the innocent is convicted and the guilty go free. As a result, I was always very careful not only with identifying suspects, but in the way I phrased a question. There is a world of difference between "is this the " scum bag" suspect that committed this horrendous crime vs "tell me again what happened." Closed ended questions ( especially with children ) vs. open ended questions should always be emphasized.
John, thank you for your candor, there are good cops, however, like any other occupation, there are good guys and bad guys. But only in the military and law enforcement often good guys get hardened and insensitive to the point respect for others and their rights are often lost, maybe that is why the divorce rate for police and military personel are the highest of all occupations....I have an ex brother-in law who served several years in law enforcement and he is the most pessimistic and disrespectful person I have ever met, he will not allow himself to see the good in anyone.
John I believe that the majority of police officers out there want to see justice done and try to do a good job, and you are obviously one of them. If you also report bad police officers to internal affairs, then you are a perfect police officer. I truly appreciate what you do and hope you never let the difficulty of doing things right change your attitude. BUT we really do need to get better at getting rid of the few bad police officers and prosecutors BEFORE they ruin innocent lives. I think what you see in these posts is the frustration people have with the huge difficulty of doing this. Keep up the good work and all the best to you.
John Boles, Unfortunately for us, most of society are not LEOs. We are not your enemy despite how foul the public can be. Cops have the power to arrest people, legally administer a beat-down and more. Are you surprised by the resentment exhibited towards police? In this case, a police officer targeted an innocent man based on a chance encounter. After the victim indentified him in a rigged photo line up, he was convicted. No physical evidence existed or was required. He had a clear alibi and witnesses, but the police and prosecution "had their man". The lack of his finger prints in the vehicle should have been enough to turn their attention elsewhere. An innocent man received a death sentence. The state, judge and govenor can stick all of the useless posthumous declarations. They had the guilty SOB the whole time and failed to make the connection.
Let me tell you about the case of the police detective in Rhode Island. He had a long term affair with a woman that was known to many. She became a victim of a burglary and was murdered. The cops decided that the detective was the likely suspect. He had no problem talking to investigators because he knew all of them, of course. While doing the worst possible job of an objective investigation, they concluded that he had killed his girlfriend. He was tried, convicted and sent to prison for murder. While this case is about eye-witness testimony, there was none in the RI case. The police simply decided he did it and set out to proove it. Of course he had actually been in the house before, it was having an affair.
After he served six or eight years, the actual killer confessed to the crime. Did I mention that the innocent man is White? Anyone can get railroaded, even police officers. Does that change your perspective, just a little?
What?!?! I think there's businesses out there making money base on eyewitness news. Is that a mind trick? What am I to think that they are just a bunch of propaganda machines? That communism was used to kill off the feeble minded and now the catholic pope is a feudal king of planet earth and a servant of God at the same time?
It's not a mind trick if it's a lie as in lying witness.
I recall an experiment that was done by my sociology teacher in 9th grade. She took photos directly out of the Sears catalogue(anyone old enough to recall them?). She divided the class up into several groups-she had white models and black models photos with the same information of an alledge crime. Each time the groups that had a black model convicted him whereas the white models were not! This was a blind experiment but made a major impact from that time forward about not going just on the evidence as we ALL know that some policemen and prosecutors will frame a person just to get a conviction! I personally feel we need laws that says it it is proven after the fact that evidence was there to exonerate a person but was not revealed. I mean comeon-I thought justice was presenting ALL of the evidence not just to convict! Remember the stories where a person was clocked in at work. Several employees verified they were there at work and still got convicted based on a one witness word. Makes one wonder when you go look in the Bible why it says that a person can only be condemn based on witness of 2 or more people and not just one. (please save your bible bashing comments for when you go sit on the potty!) I use to be a firm believer of the death penalty but have over the years changed my beliefs. As once a person is put to death there is reprieve if found to be wrongly convicted. Whereas life you still have a chance to exonerate. In case you do not believe in wrongful convictions-just look at Dallas alone-How many have had death sentences overturned because the then prosecutor(I believe now deceased) knowingly convicted innocent people! We must demand justice! If that means that police officers get sentence in place of them-they should after all they basically had a person sentenced to death. Is that not like attempted murder? Also, I come from a family that had 2 members served in law enforcement so I know from their experience that gungho detectives try to have them adjust stories to better chance of conviction. Thankfully, they had integrity to not stoop that low. But it does HAPPEN. SO get me on a jury and I will not convict just because a law person said so. Show me evidence and provable DNA where possible. I served one time where most of jury were like me upset as we felt we were being lied to. We voted the other way.
While most police officers are doing their job to the best of their ability, the fact that some are scum means one thing. If you are detained by a police officer tell them you want a lawyer and will answer no further questions until said lawyer is in the same room you are in. Next step, zip it totally until the lawyer shows up. Period.
John, appreciate your honest input. Yes, you mentioned something that came back as a lightbulb. My law enforcment family members did tell me that after a while on the job that you basically did not believe anyone. Especially after getting lied to so ofter. (People caught carrying items on body would lie saying I did not know that was there or that is not mine but cannot provide whose it was. I do know that certain segments of society wojuld blatently tell law "I ain't gonna do your job for you"(giving info that might help in breaking case). So burden of proof is actually on both sides. You refer to fact that people will say that person looks "like" the person-some law will persude that person based on that maybe.
As the victim of a violent crime over 20 years ago, I was POSITIVE I knew who did it--someone I'd seen around, but didn't really know. Fortunately, that man got nervous and left the area. I say fortunately because I couldn't have been more wrong. Eventually, the actual perpetrator was caught, indicted in over a dozen other rapes, convicted (in part because of DNA), and should never see freedom again. That said, I believe a lineup is only effective as a guideline of general description and should never be allowed into a trial unless the witness already knew them before the lineup and/or several unrelated people identify the same person.
Well, not toot my own horn, but I got the test right the first time!
WHEN I was 15, i saw a man robbed at gun point..i only saw the man with the gun from behind"i never saw his face", a week later police showed up with some photos and ask me if i could pick out the person.."i said No" but the showed me the photo of a man , who they said did it.. a few months later in court.. I told what i saw, and a lawyer ask me if i could point out the man who did it.. I said NO, I didnt see his face..after court, someone "not sure if it was police or working for the state..said Didnt you see the man's photo ? i said yes, he ask me then why couldn't i pick him out in court.. I felt like his photo was pointed out to me and what he looked like..so i could pick him out in court :/
Having witnessed two burglars exiting from a client's neighbor's garage taking two bicycles with them just a few weeks ago, I have to relay my experience concerning that. I provided my name to other neighbors who passed it on to the burgled neighbor when they came home that evening. That night, a Denver police officer called me and asked what I saw, etc. etc. I gave him as much information as I could provide. The following week, a Denver police detective called me to discuss the crime I had witnessed. His first (and last) question was simply "Could you identify the suspects with certainty if you saw them again?" I said I could not do so with 100% certainty. He thanked me for my time and ended the call.
And I'd rather have it that way than for me to identify someone wrongly.
Better to have 100 guilty men go free than 1 innocent man wrongly convicted
thats the way I see it
The police in Butte County, California, in particular the city of OROVILLE, need to really educate themselves in this same regard. My family nearly suffered a similar injustice. And YES, the police there DO influence who the "eyewitnesses" pick out of a photo lineup. My heart breaks for Tim Cole who had his life stolen from him.
I've been asked to choose a person out of a photo line-up before and it's very challenging. I was working retail, I saw hundreds of people a day, and someone had used a stolen credit card so about a month after the incident police came in and asked me to look at the pictures. Too much time had passed and I had seen too many faces, the cop and my boss were in the room with me so I felt immense pressure. It was horrible! I was unable to choose, I felt terrible, but there was nothing I could do. I left the job that day; they made me feel like it was all my fault that I was unable to help.
In my case a cop didnt push any one person, but I cant say I'm suprised some do, it could very much give them the results they're looking for when people (like me) are unsure but genuinely want to help. Very sad though for those wrongly pushed
March 21, 2012, the Illinois House voted down a bill which would have made it legal to record on duty police officers in public spaces. With 59 nays, the House voted to kill HB 3944, which would have exempted people who make a “recording of a peace officer who is performing a public duty in a public place and speaking at a volume audible to the unassisted human ear” from an eavesdropping violation. Though that law was ruled unconstitutional by a Cook County judge earlier this month, Illinois still remains a “two-party consent” state, which means both parties must give consent to record, whether or not the space is public.
Rep. Elaine Nekritz, sponsor of HB 3944 said last month the bill was necessary because “the law has yet to catch up to the thousands of citizen journalists and others who witness events, pull out their smart phones, and press record.”
Illinois, like Massachusetts and Oregon, is famous for having one of the most draconian eavesdropping laws in the country. The New York Times recently profiled two Illinois citizens who ran afoul of the law that makes it a Class 1 felony to audio record a law-enforcement officer, state’s attorney, assistant state’s attorney, attorney general, assistant attorney general or judge in the performance of his or her duties. It is a crime to use any device “for the purpose of hearing or recording all or any part of any conversation … unless [done] with the consent of all of the parties to such conversation or electronic communication. …”
One of the two individuals facing a felony conviction is an artist charged with using a digital recorder when he was arrested in 2009 for selling art without a permit. The other is a woman who used her BlackBerry to record Internal Affairs investigators who were interviewing her last August in connection with a sexual harassment complaint she’d filed against a police officer. The ACLU filed a suit last summer, challenging the Illinois law as a violation of the First Amendment and burdening the right of citizens to monitor law enforcement. The suit has been dismissed twice. Wiretapping statutes apply to audio recordings.
Most people are not aware it is a felony to record a police action.
That out-dated and stupid law only exists in Illinois and perhaps the other states you mentioned. It is ridiculously out dated because of the prevalence of surveillance cameras and cell phone cameras. As you noted, the law is unconsitutional. People get arrested but rarely prosecuted under it, so there are no convictions for appellate relief...
I lived in Lubbock during the time period of the event. The DA was crooked. Judges were crooked. It wasn't until the early 90's that the DA and worst judge was removed. During their tenure, if you were not a political supporter of them, you were guilty regardless of the evidence. The police knew this and acted accordingly.
Example, house is burglarized, suspect leaves fingerprints on glass jar (1 gallon size). The police dust for prints and you can see them clearly, but the officer says he can't. No resolution by the police. Primary suspect is a police informant. Neighborhood watch notes increase in burglaries when he moves into the neighborhood so they focus on him. Landlord decides to evict him due to the problems. Stolen items are recovered from his house after his eviction. Police still unwilling to investigate. None of the victims are politically connected.
Example, woman is crossing the street around 8:30 PM in the crosswalk on a well light major street. A car runs the red light, hitting the woman removing her leg and killing her( speed limit on street is 35 MPH). Suspect is taken into custody, no breathalyzer administer, blood drawn at 3:27 AM. Suspects pleads to a misdemeanor traffic offense before blood alcohol results are obtained. BAC was .15 but double jeapardy has already attached, so he cannot be charged with additional crimes from the event. Oh, I forgot to mention he was an assistant district attorney.
Example, about a month later a bicyclist was riding on a unpaved road that had no street lights, wearing a dark jacket and had no lights or reflectors on his bike around 1:00 AM. He is struck by a car and killed. Manslaughter charges brought against the driver immediately. BAC showed no alcohol in the driver's system. Victim never tested.
Texas has its problems. I worked with a group to remove the DA involved in these actions and we were successful. This is what society must do when injustice is found.