Review of case found problems with statements from police officer who claimed victim had identified her attacker<\/b>
\nReview of case found problems with statements from police officer who claimed victim had identified her attacker
Nearly 70 years after a Texas Black man was executed in a case that prosecutors now say was based on false evidence and was riddled with racial bias, officials have declared that he was innocent of the killing of a white woman in Dallas.
Tommy Lee Walker was executed in the electric chair in May 1956 for the rape and murder of 31-year-old Venice Parker.
At the time of the trial, prosecutors had alleged Walker attacked Parker, a store clerk who was on her way home, on the evening of 30 September 1953. Parker\u2019s killing took place during a time of panic and racial division in the Dallas area as there were reports that a so-called peeping Tom believed to be a Black man was terrorizing women, according to the Dallas county criminal district attorney\u2019s office.
But an extensive review of Walker\u2019s conviction by the DA\u2019s office, along with the help of the Innocence Project of New York and Northeastern University School of Law\u2019s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project, found multiple problems with Walker\u2019s case.
The review found problems with statements from a Dallas police officer who claimed that Parker had identified her attacker as a Black man. But multiple witnesses denied that Parker \u201cdid anything outside of convulse and hemorrhage exorbitant amounts of blood\u201d after being attacked, said John Creuzot, the Dallas county district attorney, during a Wednesday meeting of county commissioners that was held to ask the officials to declare Walker innocent.
During the next few months after Parker\u2019s killing, hundreds of Black men were rounded up by authorities \u2013 and four months later, Walker, then 19 years old, was arrested.
Walker was subjected to threatening and coercive interrogation tactics by Will Fritz, a Dallas police captain who had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan, Creuzot said.
Walker later testified he confessed to the killing because he was afraid for his life, Creuzot said.
At his trial, Walker\u2019s lawyers presented 10 witnesses who testified that at the time of the murder, they were with Walker and his girlfriend when she gave birth to their son, Edward Lee Smith, at a local hospital, according to the Innocence Project.
\u201cBut this carried little weight in Jim Crow Dallas,\u201d the Innocence Project said, using a term for an era where Black Americans were subjected to oppressive segregation.
Walker was convicted by an all-white jury in 1954.
\u201cThe prosecution in this case presented misleading and inadmissible evidence,\u201d Creuzot said. \u201cThis case, while it has undeniable legal errors, was riddled with racial injustice during a time when prejudice and bigotry were woven throughout every aspect of society, including the criminal justice system.\u201d
Creuzot credited the work of journalist Mary Mapes, who first began investigating Walker\u2019s case 13 years earlier.
\u201cHe paid with his life for a crime he could not have committed,\u201d Mapes told commissioners.
During an emotional moment at Wednesday\u2019s meeting, Smith \u2013 Walker\u2019s now 72-year-old son \u2013 and the victim\u2019s son, Joseph Parker, hugged each other.
\u201cI\u2019m so sorry for what happened,\u201d Parker told Smith.
\u201cAnd I\u2019m sorry for your loss,\u201d Smith replied.
Smith had earlier told commissioners that his father\u2019s wrongful execution was very hard for him and his mother.
\u201cI\u2019m 72 years old, and I still miss my daddy,\u201d Smith said as he cried. \u201cShe said, \u2018Baby, they give your father the electric chair for something he didn\u2019t do.\u2019\u201d
Joseph Parker told commissioners he hoped that Walker\u2019s exoneration would help prevent wrongful convictions in the future. He said it was necessary that \u201cwe learn to try not to make the same mistake again\u201d.
\u201cThe mistake being what? The mistake being the injustice, the taking of an innocent life,\u201d Parker said.
At the end of Wednesday\u2019s meeting, Dallas county commissioners unanimously passed a symbolic resolution declaring that Walker was wrongfully convicted and executed and what happened to him represented \u201ca profound miscarriage of justice\u201d.<\/p>\n