After reporting here of a DNA exoneration coming this Monday in Colorado, now there’s news that 2 more DNA exonerations will be coming in Texas on Monday.
Two Dallas County men are expected to be exonerated Monday in the rape and shooting of a woman nearly 30 years ago after DNA linked two other men to the crime.
James Curtis Williams and Raymond Jackson will be the 31st and 32nd men cleared of crimes they did not commit since 2001. Like most exonerations in Dallas County and throughout the country, their wrongful convictions involved faulty eyewitness testimony, which science has proven to be notoriously unreliable.
Jackson is 67 and Williams is 54.
The Dallas County District Attorney’s office declined to comment about the case and said they will issue a press release about the exoneration.
The victim, who was 27 at the time of the attack, could not be reached for comment. She was abducted from a parking lot of a bar and restaurant on McKinney Avenue in Dallas on Nov. 19, 1983.
The woman was walking and saw two men crouching near some cars. “The men sprung out from their position” and showed the woman a gun, according to court records. They forced her back to her car and pistol whipped her as she screamed.
The men drove to a nearby location where they both raped the woman. She ran away and one of the men shot her in the buttocks. The injuries cause the woman to need lifelong medical attention.
Williams and Jackson were wrongly indentified in a lineup and in court. They were sentenced to 99 years in prison each.
The two true perpetrators have been indicted on charges of attempted capital murder, according to court records. They are already behind bars for other crimes.
Link here.
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