Guilt and Innocence: Be Careful

We just came back from doing a story on the payments given to men who have been wrongly convicted in the state of Texas. It afforded me the opportunity to talk with the family of a man who was wrongly convicted of raping a fellow college student. Another inmate confessed to the crime and DNA tests eventually cleared Tim Cole, but not before he died in prison, having already spent 15 years behind bars.

What struck me from meeting his family was Cole's mother and her pain, now decades later, over not just her son's wrongful conviction, but how he had been treated in the media. The newspapers called him the "Tech Rapist." Tim Cole was attending Texas Tech in Lubbock at the time of his arrest. He was a veteran and had never been in trouble with the law. I can imagine the kind of coverage once he was arrested and convicted.

Remember Richard Jewell? Different from the case of someone who was convicted (and later cleared) but in general, just a few cases to keep in mind as you do your daily work.