Texas has made many headlines in recent years for the spate of exonerations of wrongfully convicted men. In most of these cases, fortuitous turns of events, along with the hard work of innocence advocates, led to solid proof that eyewitness evidence was mistaken. The same is true in the latest case, in which a Dallas judge released two men based on evidence developed by students at two of the state's university-based innocence projects.

Claude Simmons Jr. and Christopher Scott were released from custody in Dallas on October 23 based on new evidence of innocence, including the corroborated confession of one of the true perpetrators. According to prosecutors, it was mistaken eyewitness testimony that convicted the men for a 1997 murder. The two had already served over a decade of their life sentences when the innocence project students persuaded Dallas D.A. Craig Watkins to review the cases and pursue the exonerating evidence.

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Since sexism seems to be the topic du jour this weekend, I thought I would add a short little diary to add to the conversation. While I am happy more people are talking about sexism, I have been yelling from the rafters about this for months now without getting much attention.  In any case....

Between the rationalizations, denials or accusations of delegitimizing BO as the nominee when discussing sexism, it honestly makes me question some people's progressive ideals.  How does anyone know how sexism affected the outcome?  We don't.  We can only reflect on its meaning in the framing of progressive thinking - no?

As Paul Krugman writes,

The 2008 campaign has been a very disillusioning experience for a lot of people. You can make a very good case that Barack Obama was the right person for the Democrats to nominate, and Hillary Clinton the wrong choice. But the way we got there was terrible. The raw sexism, in all too many cases coming from alleged progressives -- see above -- was part of it. So, too, was the inability of many alleged progressives to see that the news media created the narrative of Hillary Clinton as race-baiter in much the same way that, 8 years ago, they created the narrative of Al Gore as congenital liar -- by assembling a montage of quotes taken out of context and willfully misinterpreted.

This whole story shouldn't affect peoples' votes in the general election: there are huge substantive issues at stake, and a wide difference between the candidates on those issues. So this is no time for a protest vote. But 2008 was definitely the year in which the progressive movement lost a lot of its innocence.

The race is over.  Isn't it time to reflect on this honestly?

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Via http://malcontends.blogspot.com/2007/11/ innocent-and-wrongly-convicted-wis.html

AP writer RYAN J. FOLEY has the latest story of the innocent Wisconsin woman whose life U.S. Attorney Stephen Biskupic (of the Eastern District of Wisconsin) tried, in vain, to ruin, so that Biskupic might curry favor with his bosses and sway a close gubernatorial election in 2006.

Personally, I think Biskupic ought to pay the innocent Georgia Thompson out of his own pocket, offer a written apology to her and the people of Wisconsin, quit the bar, and vow to Wisconsin citizens that he will not travel within a five-mile radius of any prosecutor's office.

Ever wonder how this guy looks at himself in the mirror every day after what he has done to numerous innocents? Really, how does this guy live with himself?

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