Convicting the Innocent: The Latest Texas Exonerations
In March 2009 The Justice Project published Convicting the Innocent: Texas Justice Derailed. The report chronicled the cases of 39 wrongfully convicted Texans who were freed by DNA. In the months since the report was published, two more wrongful convictions have been identified by DNA testing.
Jerry Lee Evans
When Jerry Lee Evans was prosecuted for a sexual assault in Dallas, he believed that the truth would come out when the victim took the stand. Evans thought that “when the young lady would see me in court, she’d say it wasn’t me.” Unfortunately, the victim did identify him from the stand, and Evans spent almost twenty-three years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Read more.
Ernest Sonnier
In 1986, Ernest Lee Sonnier was wrongfully convicted of aggravated kidnapping and rape in Houston and sentenced to life in prison. Twenty-three years later, DNA testing proved his innocence. He became the sixth man in Harris County to be freed based on evidence of faulty forensics from the Houston Police Department Crime Lab. Read more.
