The legacy of Henry Wade

[Guest Tom Scully]

Thanks to Tom Blackwell (and Ed and Debra) for keeping us posted on this. - BK

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-0...653195694_x.htm

By Michael Graczyk, Associated Press Writer

DALLAS — As district attorney of Dallas for an unprecedented 36 years, Henry Wade was the embodiment of Texas justice.A strapping 6-footer with a square jaw and a half-chewed cigar clamped between his teeth, The Chief, as he was known, prosecuted Jack Ruby. He was the Wade in Roe v. Wade. And he compiled a conviction rate so impressive that defense attorneys ruefully called themselves the 7 Percent Club....

.....But now, seven years after Wade's death, The Chief's legacy is taking a beating.

Former assistant prosecutor Dan Hagood said The Chief expected his assistants to be prepared, represent the state well and be careful and fair.

"Never once -- ever -- did I ever get the feeling of anything unethical," Hagood said. He denied there was any pressure exerted from above -- "no 'wink' deals, no 'The boss says we need to get this guy.'"

But Watkins said those who defend The Chief are "protecting a legacy."

"Clearly it was a culture. A lot of folks don't want to admit it. It was there," the new DA said. "We decided to fix it."

Corrupt denialists like Dan Hagood and those who investigated and prosecuted the crimes that put innocent people behind bars....or worse by manipulating or withholding evidence beneficial to the defense and by intentionally manipulating juries to eliminate the "jury of his peers" right to trial, should now be investigated and held accountable.

This week, though, our new president announced that he endorses two tier justice...one lenient tier for the establishment. and a harsher one for the rest of us, or for anyone who loses to the US military:

http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/04/ob...se_decision.php

.....This is a time for reflection, not retribution. . . . But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past. Our national greatness is embedded in America's ability to right its course in concert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence. That is why we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future.....

Bill, I know your point is that the Dallas PD and DA, circa 1963, were not earnest, competent, investigators and prosecutors, but I don't think it should be left unsaid that our "system" of justice was and still is a corrupt and unjust system, hobbled by a lack of credibility of it's own making (and intent?). This is the most compelling argument to reply to the LNs with.

Whatever Obama does personally believe, even the outrageous oath of office breaking words from him, the federal government's chief law enforcement officer, quoted above, may not be enough to keep the MIC/Intel community from subjecting him to the JFK treatment. He exposed their crimes against humanity, unconstitutional law and treaty breaking, CYA, after the fact OLC documents to the world.

You'll never see an apology for the lives they've ruined and the subversion of the principles of "the republic for which it stands", from Dan Hagood, Bush, Cheney, or Michael Hayden. The full weight of the process of actual justice must be dragged over them by the people, and dropped on them.

Edited April 18, 2009 by Tom Scully

[William Kelly]

Thanks to Tom Blackwell (and Ed and Debra) for keeping us posted on this. - BK

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-0...653195694_x.htm

By Michael Graczyk, Associated Press Writer

DALLAS — As district attorney of Dallas for an unprecedented 36 years, Henry Wade was the embodiment of Texas justice.A strapping 6-footer with a square jaw and a half-chewed cigar clamped between his teeth, The Chief, as he was known, prosecuted Jack Ruby. He was the Wade in Roe v. Wade. And he compiled a conviction rate so impressive that defense attorneys ruefully called themselves the 7 Percent Club....

.....But now, seven years after Wade's death, The Chief's legacy is taking a beating.

Former assistant prosecutor Dan Hagood said The Chief expected his assistants to be prepared, represent the state well and be careful and fair.

"Never once -- ever -- did I ever get the feeling of anything unethical," Hagood said. He denied there was any pressure exerted from above -- "no 'wink' deals, no 'The boss says we need to get this guy.'"

But Watkins said those who defend The Chief are "protecting a legacy."

"Clearly it was a culture. A lot of folks don't want to admit it. It was there," the new DA said. "We decided to fix it."

Corrupt denialists like Dan Hagood and those who investigated and prosecuted the crimes that put innocent people behind bars....or worse by manipulating or withholding evidence beneficial to the defense and by intentionally manipulating juries to eliminate the "jury of his peers" right to trial, should now be investigated and held accountable.

This week, though, our new president announced that he endorses two tier justice...one lenient tier for the establishment. and a harsher one for the rest of us, or for anyone who loses to the US military:

http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/04/ob...se_decision.php

.....This is a time for reflection, not retribution. . . . But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past. Our national greatness is embedded in America's ability to right its course in concert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence. That is why we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future.....

Bill, I know your point is that the Dallas PD and DA, circa 1963, were not earnest, competent, investigators and prosecutors, but I don't think it should be left unsaid that our "system" of justice was and still is a corrupt and unjust system, hobbled by a lack of credibility of it's own making (and intent?). This is the most compelling argument to reply to the LNs with.

Whatever Obama does personally believe, even the outrageous oath of office breaking words from him, the federal government's chief law enforcement officer, quoted above, may not be enough to keep the MIC/Intel community from subjecting him to the JFK treatment. He exposed their crimes against humanity, unconstitutional law and treaty breaking, CYA, after the fact OLC documents to the world.

You'll never see an apology for the lives they've ruined and the subversion of the principles of "the republic for which it stands", from Dan Hagood, Bush, Cheney, or Michael Hayden. The full weight of the process of actual justice must be dragged over them by the people, and dropped on them.

I don't think Henry Wade was such a bad guy, as much as he was typical of the times. My father worked as a detective for eight different prosecutors over a period of decades, while Wade kept the job himself.

Wade and his men may have wrongfully convicted dozens of innocent people for crime they didn't commit, and the Innocence Project is trying to rectify that, but who will reinvestigate those crimes and go after those responsible?

Nor do I have such a hatred for Bush, Cheney and their gang. I kind of liked it when you knew the bad guys were in power, as I knew where I stood with them.

BK

[Guest Tom Scully]

I don't think Henry Wade was such a bad guy, as much as he was typical of the times. My father worked as a detective for eight different prosecutors over a period of decades, while Wade kept the job himself.

Wade and his men may have wrongfully convicted dozens of innocent people for crime they didn't commit, and the Innocence Project is trying to rectify that, but who will reinvestigate those crimes and go after those responsible?

Nor do I have such a hatred for Bush, Cheney and their gang. I kind of liked it when you knew the bad guys were in power, as I knew where I stood with them.

BK

Bill,

Where did you "stand with them?" They assured us that the US government they gave the orders to, "do not torture". They promised us that Saddam had WMD and posed an "imminent threat". How many who thought they knew where they stood with Bush and Cheney, died or were horribly wounded following orders to engage in an avoidable war in Iraq?

As far as Wade....what do you think the implications, as far as benefits to the police, and setbacks for suspects, and heaven forbid, those arrested and charged, an illegally manipulated, 93 percent conviction rate portends? My guess is that it makes police lazy and less ethical, more prone to lean on suspects who correctly fear arrest as the same as conviction, and it makes a plea bargain the logical choice by the falsely accused.

It's rot, Bill, a pox in any jusrisdiction where it happens. The police and prosecutors become indistinguishable with the convicted. Justice is not served, it is co-opted. A "justice" system like the one Wade presided over is the best argument against capital punishment, because no one is in possession of the moral authority to determine who to apply it to.

Just as with the legitimizing of torture, corrupt prosecution and compromised evidence makes the enforcer too much like the "bad guys". What is it corrupt proseuctors are prosecuting to uphold or preserve, besides their own corrupted power?

I don't see how there is anybody to bring the "evidence" of a conspiracy to kill JFK to for a new investigation, if we accept, much less support, police, prosecutors, or a president or attorney general who do not earnestly respect, follow, and uphold the law.

[William Kelly]

Dallas DNA documentary on Times TV tonight.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_12237391

'Dallas DNA' documentary series follows exonerees

By JEFF CARLTON Associated Press Writer

Posted: 04/27/2009 09:42:48 AM MDT

DALLAS—For nearly 26 years, Johnnie Lindsey was in prison, a wrongly convicted man waiting for someone on the outside to believe in his innocence.

Last year, a DNA test from a rape kit proved Lindsey innocent, and he was released.

The 56-year-old man's sweetly subdued reaction upon hearing he will be freed is the dramatic high point in the opening episode of the six-part documentary series "Dallas DNA," premiering Tuesday at 10 p.m. EDT on Investigation Discovery. Relief floods across Lindsey's smooth face, his pursed lips showing the barest hint of a smile.

"On the inside, it was the feeling of experiencing a dream come true," Lindsey said in a recent interview with The Associated Press, Lindsey's case is one of several profiled in "Dallas DNA," a series chronicling trailblazing Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins and his team's efforts to use DNA evidence to clear the innocent and confirm the convictions of the guilty.

A 2001 Texas law allowed inmates to request post-conviction DNA testing. But Dallas prosecutors routinely denied those requests until Watkins, the state's first black district attorney, took office in 2007.

Watkins took a different tack, throwing open his office's files and allowing the Innocence Project of Texas to review cases where DNA testing could prove someone was wrongly convicted.

The results have been astounding. Dallas County's 20 DNA exonerations are the most of any county in the nation....

http://investigation.discovery.com/tv-sche....125393.36206.7

April 29, 1am Sweet Justice

May 2, 10 am Sweet Justice

May 5, 10 pm Righting Wrongs

May 6, 1 am Righting Wrongs

May 9, 10 am Righting Wrongs

May 12, 10 pm Lost Time

May 13, 1am Lost Time

....