Parole System Trumps Presumption of Innocence
Jimmy Lee Page committed a murder–or at least, he was convicted of murder. He killed a man in 1975, and spent eleven years in prison. But just eight months after Page was paroled, another murder occurred. There wasn’t much to tie Page to that murder, which was an ugly and high-emotion killing of a local woman and attempted murder of a 7-year-old boy. He had a knife, but there was no evidence tying the knife to the murders. He was identified by the child victim, but the same boy also identified three other men, two in photographs and one in a live line-up. One of his photo misidentifications took place in the courtroom, with the defendant in plain sight.
The criminal justice system worked the way it’s supposed to. A jury acquitted Page and went home feeling confident. Two months later, Page appeared before a parole board. The parole board, not bound by little inconveniences like proof beyond a reasonable doubt and evidentiary standards, decided that Page had committed the murder after all, and in so doing had violated his parole. They put Page back in prison, where he’s been since 1987, just two months after the jury found him not guilty of the murder.
According to a post on The Criminal Defense Blog, 91 Texas parolees were returned to prison last year after being acquitted or having charges against them dismissed by prosecutors.
