Time To Begin Prosecuting The Prosecutors - James Woodard of Texas Still Not Free

James Woodard, a black man, was dishonestly convicted of raping and murdering his girlfriend in 1981 and sentenced to life in prison. He was released on April 29, the 17th Dallas County inmate to be exonerated by DNA testing. According to CNN: "The jury believed Woodard was the last person seen with the victim. But according to court records, there were two other men that were with her. Police never followed up on the lead and prosecutors never shared the information with defense attorneys, even though they were legally obligated to do so."

Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins has gone on record as saying that corrupt prosecutors ought to be punished. Watkins wants to make it a crime from now on for prosecutors to knowingly hide or suppress evidence that could help a defendant. Naturally, many in the legal community there are alarmed by his comments, and especially those who are guilty of crimes against innocents.

Woodward told CNN: ""I think he should pay a penalty. I paid 27 years. He took my life away from me. What's the difference if it's by a gun, by words or by lies?"

I could not agree more!

"Until Proven Innocent" - A Must Book for "Liberal" Hypocrites - Ugly and True

I've gave up on the left many years ago, and the right long before that. What I'm left with now are feelings of revulsion and impatience, for I find them both horribly hypocritical and self-serving. Whatever happened to reason, I ask you? Nevertheless, you must buy and read the nonfiction book, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case. The book was written by Stuart Taylor, a columnist for National Journal, and K.C. Johnson, a history professor at Brooklyn College and CUNY.

No book could possibly do a better job of documenting and shining a glaring spotlight on the radical left of the Duke Campus--a group of lynch-mob academics who were determined, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, to condemn three innocent people simply because they were white and male. The evidence cannot be refuted. It's UGLY and it's TRUE. Only the biggest ostrich on earth could hide from these facts.

Courtesy of a great article on UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT on NPR, a slice or two from Chapter 8:

For many months not one of the more than five hundred members of the Duke arts and sciences faculty—the professors who teach Duke undergraduates — publicly criticized the district attorney or defended the lacrosse players' rights to fair treatment. Not even after enough evidence had become publicly available to establish clearly both the falsity of the rape charge and the outrageousness of Nifong's actions—widely seen as the worst case of prosecutorial misconduct ever to unfold in plain view. But, as some admitted privately to friends, they were also afraid to cross the activists—black and female activists especially—lest they be smeared with charges of racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, or right-wingism ...That's what would happen to a chemistry professor who—months after the team's innocence had become clear—became the first member of the arts and sciences faculty to break ranks with the academic herd. It took less than twenty-four hours for the head of Duke's women's studies program to accuse him of racism in a letter to The Chronicle.

The book goes further to note the contribution of a special Duke faculty member, Houston A. Baker Jr., a professor of English and of African and African-American Studies.

Baker was in demand among TV hosts such as MSNBC's Rita Cosby and CNN's Nancy Grace. He was also quoted in newspapers local and national, including The New York Times and USA Today ... Baker provided a window both into his soul and into the indifference of many academics to fact after a critic e-mailed him, "You will owe a big apology when the truth comes out, but I doubt you will be man enough to issue it." Retorted the professor: "Who is really concerned about whether a woman was actually raped or not? Are you a perfect idiot?" Baker tossed out a litany of false charges of misbehavior by lacrosse players, such as that they had "beat up people who were gay," before closing: "... You live in a white supremacist fantasy land. . . . Whew! Have you read recently? Anything? . . . And, get over yourself, buddy. Get smart before you write to a professor, OK. Read SOMETHING."

Thanks guys, for "Until Proven Innocent." Thanks to National Public Radio for bubbling this book to the surface.