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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aRE WE SURPRISED THAT THIS MAN IS BLACK??
Another brother sentenced FALSELY for a crime they did not convict. Several HUNDRED black men and other minorities have had their convictions OVERTURNED when real evidence was admitted in their appeals (DNA, witnesses, etc) .
The sad thing is that it still continues, even in the media whenever a non minority says some black guy did it, the police round up any black guys that barely even match a desription and one gets convicted more often than not on FALSEHOOD!!!
Then people let ZIMMERMAN walk for murdering a unarmed teenager without even charges against him.....makes me sick that true justice is not being served!!! if someone IS guilty, then yes, COME DOWN ON THEM WITH BOTH FEET, but D.A.s all over the country will not allow a lot of evidence to free someone when it is a minority as opposed to a non minority...
A chain-smoking, African-American rapist who used a knife. That was the man the Lubbock police should have been looking for. But it was a nonsmoking, asthmatic black man they eventually settled on.
No Physical Evidence
Cole had enrolled at Texas Tech for the 1985 spring semester. One of his friends worked at a Mr. Gatti's pizza parlor near campus, and Cole would often wait for him there. The restaurant was just a few blocks from where Mallin was raped. The police took a Polaroid photograph of Cole and showed it to her.
"Yeah, I was pretty confident, I never really wavered," Mallin says. "I really honestly believed that they found the right guy and I had picked out the right guy." She says she assumed the police had other physical evidence.
But there were holes in the prosecution's case. No physical evidence tied Cole to the crime. Although the rapist drove the car extensively, Cole's fingerprints were not found in the vehicle. Cole also had a solid alibi: At the time of the rape, he was studying in his apartment while his brother was having a card party in the living room. Several young people testified at trial that Cole was in the apartment with them all evening.
As he sobbed in his jail cell crying out that he was innocent, another inmate, Jerry Wayne Johnson, was listening.
Johnson was in jail over charges that he had raped two women. One victim was a 15-year-old white girl he brazenly snatched right out of her high school. Johnson had held a knife to her throat as he drove her to a vacant lot outside of Lubbock. He also was a heavy smoker.
Johnson had been following Cole's trial closely, because he was the man who raped Mallin. In an interview with the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, Johnson describes listening to Cole's anguished cries that night.
Given the high cost of proving innocent beyond a reasonable doubt, it is no wonder going to trial is a sham. When the probable ID was the "Best" evidence. Just for wanting a fair trial is a senseless craving for justice. If you accept a plea bargin you get a slap on the wrist if you go to trial you are punished ten times worse for the mere asking for fairness. Criminal justice professionals have know for years witness ID is extremily unreliable yet often enhance it as fact when unable to produce real evidence. People (most) are not aware of the high cost of hiring an attorney and what it may cost to take a case to trial until they are caught up in frightening " criminal justice system" hocuspocus justice for the truly innocent.
The people in the US needs to wake up, time running out. This is the norn now in the US, our system has failed, full of corruption and run by the lowest people. The police can stop you, come to your house, work place and arrect you at any time. It is not possible to live in the US and not be criminal. There are so many laws, that most have never heard of and is impossible to know or comply with, that any one can be arrested at any time.
Do you store you batteries, gas in cans, motor oil as the law requires. How about hording food, do you have too much...only the goverment knows. How about the thousands of of things that you do every day, talk on the phone about political issues and make statment that my be taken out of context.
Every day you commite crimes, it was been desigend this way, so be careful that you do not protest too much...or else. Time is almost gone for the US, the peolpe are not citizens, they are civilians. Hugh packs controls the elections, parties control the candiates, you pay for it all.
The goverment officals and their friend have stole 15 trillion dollars that our children and thier children for every will be paying on. The corruption will continue, soon the only people inthe US that will have a life is goverment employees, thier retirment wil lbe guaranteed, your's will be gone. You will get helth care if you are need to work, other wise you will die. This is coming and coming fast.
LOOK ARE GREECE....this is you...in a few more years
Anything you say or do can be used AGAINST YOU.... Notice it does not say it will be used FOR YOU to HELP you
The law was created to be broken by the judicial system.It behooves me to think that we have the constitution of the united States where we are suppose to be equal under the law but yet each state has a different law with different consequences. I'm sure when most people get into law enforcement it's with the intent to do good until they see what other monkeys are doing and it becomes; monkey see. and monkey will do... if not, you either break the law with us or you are out of law enforcement and in some cases dead.( Its the good old boys.) network.
Politics and law enforcement are two of the most enticing professions to pursue with the only equalizer being God. The almighty always seeks his vengeance 0n the wrongdoers whether we can see it...... or understand it...God bring forth the pain, the agony, the sickness and suffering on the ones who has cast violence on their fellow man. He who kills shall be killed. No ones gets away without paying the price of revenge.
I was shown a lineup once. Long story but i had been jogging with a bf (off duty cop). He ran ahead and i walked a bit, passed and said hello to a guy standing on the trail smoking a cigarette. We passed him again on the way back and then a woman alone walking in the opposite direction towards the man standing on the trail (good looking guy in his early 20s).
That night they found the woman dead in that same area, with nothing but her socks on and her throat slit from ear to ear. In a line up I was shown, there was a picture of a guy that resembled the man on trail but if it was him (turned out it was), it was an old pic and I couldn't be sure so i think on a scale of 1 to 5 i gave it a 3. My ex bf positively IDed him though.
After showing me the lineup and my selecting his photo they asked me to do a sketch. I told them no, that after seening the pictures I would probably tend to describe the photo I had just selected, rather than the man I actually saw.
My point is that it is up to us to know right from wrong and to do the right thing. You can't place all the blame on the police. We have a responsibility as well.
As it turned out, it was the guy. He was on probation for other sexual offenses and eventually admitted and pled guilty to her rape but claimed he didn't kill her.
Most court cases are about winning for the attorneys and has nothing to do with the truth. If the truth was the point then there should be no evidence not allowed. There should be a jury picked by just taking the next jurors in order not questioning weather they have an opinion favoring one side or the other.
As an attorney in my 50th year, I have seen most most of the things the comments note. An old sergeant in the Army once put it best: Don't blame the Army, it's the people in it. The justice system can work, but only as well as the people running it, who are human. I have noticed that in many of the portrayals of the Godess of Justice her scales are tilted toward the sword. Sort of an "Abandon all hope" motif. Governor Perry was correct in the posthumous pardon of the young man this article is about, but he was admitting someone else's misconduct--and as your comments emphasize, he has done nothing to prevent a recurrence. In Louisiana, our contribution to the discussion is Mr. Thompson who did 14 years on death row, because members of the District Attorney's office hid and destroyed physical evidence that proved he was innocent of the crime they used to get the death penalty. His $15,000,000 jury verdict was taken away by the US Supreme Court, and the only person punished was an ex assistant DA who heard about it and kept quiet. He got a reprimand, and now works for a New Orleans Criminal Court judge, also a former assistant DA. And the only persons who feel bad about it are Mr. Thompson and the lawyers who saved his life. Don't you get tired of the innocent people getting off of death row? How do you feel about them getting there?
interesting, so the girl who picked the inocent out is now indirrectly a murder as the innocent is dead what happened to guy who did it? let me guess he is out their gleefully comitting crimes I would expect no less from texas what a crap hole
true he was never found!!! at least not charged with this crime..
This procedure is not new. Massachusetts has been using this method for probably ten years. Expected more from your researchers, Dallas is probably the last to come on board.
These comments should be required reading for everyone in the U.S. I wish I could make it right to all of you that were incorrectly accused or prosecuted. What an eye-opener!
I know first hand how eyewitness accounts and photo arrays can lead to fale convictions as I was placed on trial for armed bank robbery. there was no physicial evidence just photo and witness accounts,fortunately I was at another bank making a deposit and after much hassles I was able to obtain photos of me 10 minutes before the robbery. At my trial 3 bank emplyees testified 100% sure I committed the robbery. thankfully I was acquitted and found not guilty. I waived the jury on advice of my attorney as a jury would quite possibly convicted me on faulty testimony.
Lubbock native: i have been through the LPD JUST-US system and believe me the dont care what color you are as long as it results in a conviction. they tried to railroad me in 1980 and thanks for my mother and her little spare cash. 3000 bucks for P.I to find the real guilty party and 3000bucks for a lawyer to walk across the street with the proof it was not me.
p.s. the guilty got 8yrs...
My Niece had a boyfriend who was involved is some drug trouble She was arrested along with him. She had medical needs and was being treated like shet. She did lots of complaining and THE DA was absolutely livid when my Dad posted $50K CASH bail for her. The DA expected to keep her in jail to punish her because she would NOT sign anything.
She never went to jail !!
Our system is so flawed that I laid to rest my belief in the death penalty after I watched a documentary on innocent people that had spent years in prison for crimes they did not commit. If it had not been for DNA they would still be in jail or dead. If your going to put someone to death I expect a 100% beyond a doubt approach and we don't have that. This is serious @!$%# people what the hell is wrong with our court system and police that a score is more important than someone's life.
Unfortunately, it is just not Texas with the broken criminal justice system;(god knows Texas is broken) but it is county wide even in the so-called Smartlands (New England home of Harvard and MIt) You have misscarriages of justice. It really boil down to just-us or justice. If you have money, then you have justice, if you have no money, then justice is just for us.
NUCLEAR Vs FOSSIL FUEL Nuclear power is expensive and uninsurable. We use to be leaders in the world, now… Let’s just say we truly are not number #1. Germany is planning on being nuclear free by 2022. Yes 10 years away, but they are starting to draw down. Where is the USA? WELL!!! Let’s build more…. Bigger, better and safer. Japan, a year later and they do not have the knowledge to correct the problem and it is giving off radiation! http://grist.org/nuclear/2011-06-04-nuclear-power-is-expensive-and-uninsurable/ Can anyone forget this one?? http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/chernobyl/inf07.html
FOSSIL FUEL. I could not find a website that dealt with the actual cost of using fossil fuel. So I will bring to your remembrance.. BP. 11 people died. http://abcnews.go.com/WN/bp-oil-spill-transocean-holds-memorial-11-lost/story?id=10739080#.T3_CO_u2zjI Then the worst in history,167 people died http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/6/newsid_3017000/3017294.stm
Coal mines, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/10/us/10westvirginia.html History of coal… 100,000 lives lost in coal mining accidents…http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/10/us/10westvirginia.html
Natural Gas.. ALLENTOWN, Pa. — A thunderous gas explosion devastated a row-house neighborhood, killing five people, and suspicion fell on an 83-year-old cast-iron gas main. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2014190571_gasblast11.html Nearly 300 students in Texas are killed by an explosion of natural gas at their school on this day in 1937. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/natural-gas-explosion-kills-schoolchildren-in-texas To be fair, I did a search on how many lives were lost because of solar power… I couldn’t find any.. Each of those fuels you hold so dearly to your heart.. is a direct killer!!!, But also it’s power lingers on and continues to kill, pollute… ask the “Coal Miners Daughter”.. how many people died of lung disease? How much property was lost either directly from explosion or from the after effects? Or, Two Chernobyl plant workers died on the night of the accident, and a further 28 people died within a few weeks as a result of acute radiation poisoning. How much money would the parents give to have their school child brought back to life in the Texas massacre in 1937?
So, tell me once again how EFFICENT fossil fuel is?
Elizabeth Loftus was writing about the unreliability of eyewitness testimony back in 1984. The people that make up the criminal justice system don't pay any attention, they just stay in their little rut and blindly climb the ladder.
Yup. Prosecutors are least interested in the truth. There's a corner office, a raise and a company car awaiting the player with the most convictions. To them the people whose lives they ruin are just chess pieces. Sadly, the position attracts losers. Usually a 'career prosecutor' is someone who couldn't make it in private practice.
I agree with Goodday's comment on the death penalty too. As a longtime student of criminal justice, a life sentence is actually cheaper to carry out due to the special appeals and handling of a death-row prisoner, and if someone is exonerated after the trial and conviction, they are still alive to let out of prison.
Not only are prosecuters ones with dirty fingers, Judges are just as bad. I was suing someone in court only to find out that the defendant was friends with the Judge as was his lawyer who also prosecuted part time for the Da`s Office. The Judge also liked his liquid lunch, and when he ran for re-electiom, I made him pay the price for ruling against me when I was right. When I told my Lawyer that we were had, he said no, we`ll win. 35k later, I was right. Since then, I have enacted New England Justice in Louisiana, an eye for an eye. Any corrupt Judges Or Da`s have been put off the bench or put in Jail.
I find it hard to believe prosecutors are honest and so good at their job. Most run for re-election spouting a 100% conviction rate.
They get involved in many more cases than any single defense lawyer. How many defense lawyers can brag a 100% dismissal rate?
Once they decide to prosecute there's no turning back for them. They have endless expense account, they offer plea bargains whenever there's doubt about a jury conviction. Withhold evidence.
DNA is the best thing to happen for proving guilt, innocence and prosecutorial misconduct. I agree with others that when freedom is taken away from an innocent person by intentional prosecutorial misconduct, the prosecutor should be tried and receive the same sentence.
And don't let us forget during the prosecutors trial; he/she is innocent until proven guilty.
I keep seeing people talk about voting rights taken away. You will regain your right to vota as soon as you complete your terms. Time, probation/parole etc. I know, I have a double felony conviction. I got my voters registration, notary public license, etc. You cant vote while you are still in the punishment phase. Sorta like being on restriction as a kid
@BooCoo DaBreeze you called it man. Prosecutors and Judges are seen having coctails and brunch together, and the police make their rules up as they go, their is zero checks and balances, and they are in no way held accountable for their actions. It makes me want to puke.. The adjacent township in my rural part of Arizona has 33 full time police officers, for a town of merely 26 thousand. doesnt that make you smile. I knew something was screwy when i counted 7 different police vehicles on my less than six mile drive from home to the grocery store. Great times i tell you... Wonderful.
This is why I'm against the death penalty, you convict an innocent person to death and find out later that person was innocent and then what were sorry that just doesn't seem to cut it with me and probably with a lot of other people too.
In 1975 I was arrested after leaving my neighborhood pharmacy at the age of 17, I was accused of comitting an armed robbery of the pharmacy but did not learn until trial date the robbery took place 4 months prior to my arrest, at the trial I also learned that 2 other men had been arrested, admitted commission of the crime and sentenced prior to my arrest. During the trial, the victim I learned was a part time delivery driver for the pharmacy and he testified the robbery took place in another community where he was called to make the delivery at, to this date I have never met these other men I was convicted of being an assessory to this crime with, yet after my sentence of 20 years and imprisonment of 10 years the victim of the crime viewed a photograph of another man and positively identified this person as the man whom robbed him in 1974. I was granted a court release and I petitioned then Govenor of Maryland for a Full Unconditional Pardon, which was issued to me and later I submitted a claim for compensation to the Maryland State Board of Public Works under the State Law Statue which had never been utilized and was awarded compensation for the 10 years I was imprisoned for. After my release from imprisonment, I struggled to obtain employment and tried to reintergrate myself into society yet constantly was faced with the "convicted felon label", mind you I'd petitioned the Baltimore State Courts for expungement of all records regarding that erroneous conviction and was granted three seperate court orders, the State of Maryland never complied with those court orders and in 1998 I submitted a claim to the Maryland State Treasurer for compensation for the State's non-compliance to the Court orders issued, and was awarded the limits for their non compliance to the court orders, it was at this time the State Executive Department (Governor's Office) forfilled their agreement which was drafed and signed that I obtain employment, the original agreement was created and signed by the Governor, State Comptroller and State Treasurer in 1987 at the Maryland State Board of Public Works Hearing. From the years of 1998 until 2004 I worked at the Maryland State Dept of Labor, Licensing & Regulations as an Employemt Specialist II, while in this position I won numerous awards, commendations and certificates for my record of placement of individuals classified "at risk and hard to place", individuals such as myself, formerly convicted - DSS (Dept of Social Service Receipants). In 2004 I was informed that the Baltimore City Police Department supposively had an arrest warrant for my arrest, and even though after my experience with Maryland's Judicial System I voluntarily surrendered myself to them, just imagine what I mentally went through doing such a stunt. After surrendering to the BPD I was taken before the Initial Appearance Phase of the process where the Court Commissioner determines if I was eligible for bail, at the bail review hearing I was asked whether I had any prior criminal convictions, to which I immediately replied in the negative (since I had the expungment documents and FULL UNCONDITIONAL PARDON). Just imagine my shock when the court commissioner told me that I was being denied bail because I had a conviction for Armed Robbery on the record and he felt I was untrueful when he asked me about my prior criminal history, I attempted to explain to him that I was Md's 1st exoneree and had a full unconditional pardon, and 3 seperate court orders for expunements signed by 3 seperate Judges. The court commissioner told me that I "if" I was released I should go back to the State of Maryland for more money because the conviction was still on the records. I was held 1 year until trial where I was found NOT GUILTY of the charges against me, upon my release immediately I went to the Maryland State Govenor's Office presenting them with what I had just been subjected to and their response was that I was incorrect, the conviction was no longer on the records...I could not believe what I went through with the State of Maryland Executive Members so believe me I know what miscarriage of justice means fully, during my time imprisoned I lost everything and have had to start over trying to rebuild my life at the age of 54, but no one wants to address these issues here in Maryland. I have a BA Degree in Sociology, Certificate in Paralegal Studies and Certificate as a Computer Office Specialist. I do speaking engagements concerning my wrongful imprisonment case for the Innocence Project and I'm a member of the Life After Exoneration organization from Berkeley California. I voluntarily worked for the Baltimore City Public Defender's Office since my release where I was utilized my skills and services to assit those whom possiblity could be wrongfully imprisoned as I was as a child. Misidetification is the leading causes of "wrongful imprisonment cases", remember when I was initially imprisoned, there were no organizations such as those now willing to assist you prove your innocence therefore I had to do EVERYTHING BY MYSELF, I advocate for those whom have injustice perpentrated against them because I know what it feels like to be placed in those degrading, inhumane conditions called PRISONS. When will Brian Williams speak with someone whom conviction took place prior to freedom organizations being ceated to know what it was like and what it has continued to be like for us. I would like to allow Brian Williams or someone from his staff to review my documentation as well as the video of my trial in 2005 whcih discusses my case completely. This video comes directly from the trial which was for 3 days and I was found NOT GUILTY of by a jury less than 15 minutes after they left for deliberation. Meaning there was no case from the beginning