They shared their despair over games of chess and dominos, worked on long-shot appeals together in the law library, and dreamed of the day they would win forgiveness from a justice system that failed them.

It has taken nearly 25 years, but with the assistance of DNA testing, the men — all black Americans — are proving they are innocent. Two were freed from prison. A third was exonerated in March, years after serving his sentence. On Monday, Giles is about to clear his name, becoming the 13th man from Dallas County to prove with genetic testing that he was wrongly imprisoned.

Giles, who spent 10 years in prison, is seeking to vacate his 1983 conviction. New evidence suggests that another man — also named James Giles — committed the rape. Dallas County prosecutors more than two decades ago knew about the other James Giles, who lived across the street from the victim, but never told Giles’ defense.

“I lost everything in the world,” said Giles, 53. “I just thank God we finally got someone to see that I was the wrong guy.”

Branded a rapist, Giles struggled to rebuild his life when he got out of prison. The skilled construction laborer had a hard time finding menial jobs, and his wife, who stuck with him throughout his prison term, eventually sought a divorce.

The Dallas County District Attorney plans to apologize personally to Giles on Monday. The other three wrongly convicted rapists that he befriended in prison will be cheering in the courtroom.

The wrongful convictions of these four men are some of the most dramatic examples of shoddy prosecutions in the Lone Star State — a shameful history that is coming under scrutiny.

Dallas County has had more people exonerated by DNA than all but three entire states. Texas, which leads the U.S. in convictions overturned by genetic testing, has had 27, Illinois, 26, and New York, 23. California has had 9 exonerations.

With countless current and former Texas prisoners clamoring for testing to clear their names — including more than 430 in Dallas County — law-enforcement officials predict that the number of overturned convictions will grow exponentially in coming years.

Texas prosecutors have typically fought activists’ attempts to revisit their predecessors’ cases. But Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins, the first black elected to the office, has forged an unusual alliance with the Innocence Project, a New York-based group that uses DNA testing to challenge convictions.

Watkins has proclaimed “a new day in Dallas,” and is promising to right the past wrongs of his office — particularly the many disputed convictions during the reign of Henry Wade, who served as Dallas County’s top prosecutor from 1951 to 1987.

Watkins’ office helped re-investigate the Giles case. The exoneration request must ultimately be approved by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, but with Watkins’ support, that is considered a formality.

“The mentality of the office at that time was, ‘I don’t care if there is some doubt, let’s make sure we keep up our conviction rate,’ “ Watkins said of Wade’s leadership.

Wade died in 2001, and is best known for his role in Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court right-to-privacy case that legalized abortion.

Nearly all the Dallas DNA exonerations have involved men who were convicted of sex crimes based on dubious witness accounts. Many are black — Giles would be the 10th. Unlike many other jurisdictions, including Houston, Dallas County preserved blood samples and other evidence collected decades ago, a stroke of luck that is allowing felons to seek a review of their convictions.

“The biggest tragedy when the wrong person goes behind bars is that the right person got away with it,” said Texas state Sen. Rodney Ellis. “We need to make sure the scales of justice are balanced.”

Ellis is proposing numerous reforms in response to the exonerations, including increased payments to the wrongly convicted, and the creation of an Innocence Commission that would review the wrongful convictions for signs of systemic problems.

Giles is set to testify Tuesday at a hearing in Austin on the proposals.

Giles was found guilty in 1983 of allegedly participating in a gang rape of a pregnant woman. The victim picked him out of a photo lineup, even though he was bigger and a decade older than the teenage assailant she initially described to police. That identification was the only evidence linking him to the crime. The victim never saw him in person until the trial. He was the only black man in the courtroom besides a bailiff.

Examining old files, the Innocence Project found that police and prosecutors had learned that a younger, shorter man more closely matching the description — James “Quack” Giles — lived across the street from the victim. He was friends with a neighbor, Stanley Bryant, who confessed to police shortly after the 1982 rape that he committed the crime with two teenage boys named Michael and James.

“That should have led police to the true James Giles, but it was buried,” said Vanessa Potkin of the Innocence Project, Giles’ current attorney.

Subscribe to The China Post and save.  Click hereSharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Enter your comments - 800 characters max

Receive China Post promos

Respond to this email