Innocent Convict Gets Statue in Texas

Lubbock, Texas, unveiled a statue Wednesday of Tim Cole, the black student convicted of a rape for which he was later exonerated. In 2009, DNA showed Cole was innocent; however, he had died a decade earlier from heart complications due to asthma. “I still believe in the justice system, even if the justice system doesn’t believe in me,” he wrote to his sister from prison, at a time when she was the only black student at Texas Tech’s law school. Cole always maintained he was innocent, and never confessed. In 2007, an inmate named Jerry Johnson wrote to Cole (who was already dead) confessing to the rape and offering to submit his DNA to clear Cole’s name.