Patrick Waller wasn’t just convicted of a heinous crime he didn’t commit; prior to sentencing he pled guilty to two other crimes he didn’t do.  He thought it was the only way he could escape a life sentence. 

Click on the video link near the top of this Dallas Morning News article to listen to an innocent man describe the sixteen years he lost to prison.   “I’m no angel,” he says.  True that.  He was a mixed up kid on probation for cocaine possession.  That made him an easy guy to pin a crime on–he fit the thug profile.  So long as they had a good suspect (young, poor, black and on paper), the officers investigating these cases were satisfied. 

Patrick Waller has been exonerated on DNA evidence.  In addition, two of the real perpetrators of the rape and abduction Waller was doing time for have since confessed. 

Nonetheless, one of the victims of the 1992 crime thinks Waller might still be guilty.

Listen to the video clip and you will hear Mr. Waller talk about the other prisoners he has met over the years who cannot prove their innocence due to a lack of DNA evidence.  For every DNA exoneration there are . . .

That’s the trouble, we don’t know how many innocent inmates languish behind bars.  But we are becoming all to familiar with the mechanics of wrongful conviction and the guessing game that create such horrors.