Two More Men Cleared by DNA in Dallas County

Nearly three decades after being wrongfully convicted of a rape and shooting, two Texas men were declared innocent on Monday with the help of post-conviction DNA testing which also implicated the two real perpetrators, reported the Associated Press.

James Curtis Williams and Raymond Jackson were included in a photo lineup in a 1983 aggravated assault and misidentified by the victim. Williams and Jackson were convicted the following year and sentenced to life in prison.  

“She just made a mistake in identity, and I’m just thankful that they had DNA and kept ours,” Jackson said Monday.

Recent DNA testing on the woman’s clothing and a rape kit implicated two men who have since been charged with attempted capital murder, which does not have a statute of limitations. Ten local exonerees were at the hearing to congratulate Williams and Jackson.  Although both men had been recently paroled, it wasn’t until Monday that they were declared formally innocent. Texas leads the nation with DNA exonerations, most of which are from Dallas County and involved eyewitness misidentification. 

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