Texas Governor Rick Perry Is Slow With Justice

James Waller from Dallas,Texas has spent half of his life in prison and on parole for a crime which he did not commit.

   He was convicted for raping a 12 year old boy back in 1982 based on the victim identifying Mr. Waller as the rapist even though Mr. Waller did not fit the profile from the victim.

   The young man told police that the rapist was a black man who stood at 5'8" while Mr.Waller is 6'4". that is quite a difference. It turns out that Mr. Waller was one of only a few black men that lived in his neighborhood so I guess that he was easy pickings for the Dallas police and the prosecutor as it took a jury only 46 minutes to find Mr. Waller guilty of the crime.

   Anyway, DNA evidence has cleared Mr. Waller. It would be alot easier for him if Governor Perry would get off his ass and sign off on Mr. Waller's exoneration so that Mr. Waller can get his name back officially and get on with his life.

CNN  Thursday, February 22, 2007                                         Today, Waller has a job, a college degree that he obtained while in prison, and helps feed the homeless on his own time. But he still doesn't officially have his name back. That's because under Texas law, the governor has to sign off on the exoneration to make it official. Six weeks have gone by since the judge's declaration of innocence, and there is no timetable yet from Governor Rick Perry's office.

A spokeswoman for Gov. Perry says, "There is no time frame in which the governor has to act."
So while Waller waits and wonders why the governor is taking so long, he is planning for the future. He hopes to leave Texas (he's not allowed to leave now because he is still on parole) and wants to remarry and have a child someday.

   All that Governor Perry has to do is sign the paperwork so that Mr. Waller's parole ends. What is so complicated about that? Six weeks and the governor still hasn't taken any action on this.

 

Technorati tags: Governor Perry, DNA test, James Waller, Texas