Timothy Cole died of complications from asthma in a Texas prison in 1999, put there because of a wrongful rape conviction in Lubbock in 1986. Today, the State of Texas acknowledged that Cole was not the “Tech Rapist,” and that he was wrongfully convicted.

Like so many people wrongfully convicted in the pre-DNA age, Cole was the victim of a mistaken identification by the rape victim. That hardly is unusual, as it has been demonstrated time and again that “eyewitness” testimony often is horribly inaccurate. However, what makes me angry is that the rapist (later found out to be Jerry Johnson, who confessed to the crime and whose DNA linked him to the assault) was a smoker. Cole, who had serious problems with asthma, did not smoke.

Yet, that fact somehow escaped the prosecutor, Jim Bob Darnell, who apparently valued getting a conviction — any conviction — over the truth. Today, Darnell is a judge. How fitting.

Rest in Peace, Timothy Cole. The people who murdered you still are in business doing the same thing they always have done: murdering and plundering, all done in the name of the “law.”