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60 Minutes: Exonerated (May 4, 2008)

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This episode of '60 Minutes' delves into the issue of people in Dallas County, Texas sent to Prison for crimes they didn't do, what they went through and how they got out (thanks to the Innocence Project of Texas), and it explores the legacy of former Prosecutor Henry Wade, the same Wade that is more famous for being the Prosecutor of Jack Ruby, who shot JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963, and the Wade of `Roe vs. Wade' (the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed women to have an abortion legally in the US). Wade never lost a case in Texas that he handled personally. A lot of these prisoners are being released from cases that Wade helped send these prisoners to prison years ago. What is interesting in this episode is the fact that Wade made sure that all physical evidence from each case that could be saved was preserved, which eventually led to the use of DNA years after Wade was a Prosecutor to help find out whether someone did the crime or not.

Craig Watkins, the current D.A. in Dallas County, is also profiled. He has partnered with the Innocence Project of Texas to look into past cases, and see whether the person in jail is truly guilty or not. In one case, one person was in jail for 27 years for a crime he didn't commit, because he refused to plead guilty (accept a plea bargain) for a crime he didn't do each and every time he was up for Parole. That in itself is something disconcerting, to stay in jail because a man refused to lie for the system. This man also lost 10 family members while in prison, and he couldn't go to any of their funerals.

More needs to be done to make sure there are no one falsely convicted languishing in prison, and help the ones that have been set free be compensated and treated for the trauma of being in jail for something they didn't do.