DA to commissioners: Help me keep freeing the wrongfully imprisoned

Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins this morning is asking Dallas County commissioners to help him keep a program that has been a hallmark of his two-year tenure in office -- the Conviction Integrity Unit. Watkins needs the approval of the commissioners before he can apply for a $453,900 grant from the JEHT Foundation, a New York-based institution that promotes integrity in the criminal justice system. To get that grant, the commissioners must approve the unit for another two years. To date 15 men convicted in Dallas County have been cleared, 14 of them by DNA evidence. Politically, that has worked in Watkins' favor; he has received national praise and press attention for creating the unit. Still, he’ll probably get a little flak from at least one of the commissioners on the court who believes that clearing the wrongly convicted is the job of criminal-defense attorneys, not the DA’s office.

UPDATE: The Dallas Morning News reports that DA Craig Watkins this morning successfully persuaded county commissioners to help him fund a program that has been a hallmark of his two-year tenure in office -- the Conviction Integrity Unit. Watkins got approval by a 3-1 vote of the commissioners, which he needed before he can apply for a $453,900 grant from the JEHT Foundation. At the meeting this morning, Watkins brought three of the cleared men with him and had them stand up before the commissioners. The request wasn’t about politics, it was about justice, he told the commissioners.

-- John Council