TEXAS LOOKING AT CHANGES TO PROSECUTORIAL IMMUNITY:

With more than 300 exonerations across the nation of people convicted and imprisoned for crimes they did not commit, we all have witnessed the limits of a criminal justice system flawed by human error — be that unintentional or intentional.

Nowhere more than in Texas has the weight of those imperfections been felt in cases that have tested public confidence in the criminal justice system and spurred big changes at the Legislature. That was true in the Timothy Cole case and is proving true in the Michael Morton case.

Morton’s testimony last week before the Texas Senate helped steer Senate Bill 825, prompted by his case, over a crucial hurdle. The bill aims to hold prosecutors accountable if they hide or suppress evidence from defendants. Morton’s lawyers claim prosecutors failed to turn over key evidence supporting Morton’s claim of innocence. Clearly, current laws are too lenient in punishing such practices, which not only are unethical, but illegal. The Legislature should pass the bill.

No one can give back freedoms, dignity or time stolen from people wrongfully convicted and imprisoned. But the Legislature can improve an imperfect system. It took action in the Cole case after the tragic details of Cole’s case went public. Cole, who died in prison in 1999 while serving a 25-year sentence for a rape he didn’t commit, was posthumously pardoned in 2010 by Gov. Rick Perry after DNA evidence cleared him and implicated another man who confessed to the crime.

In such cases, prosecutors should face imprisonment for the length of the defendant’s sentence, as well as being liable for money damages.