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Joyce was appointed by governor perry to serve as the representative of the Cancer PreventionResearch Institute of texas and she is honored to have been the first non lawyer appointed to serve on the board of directors of the Innocence Project of texas. I will ask her not to come to the podium and take over for a while. Thank you for being here. [applause] a good evening everyone im so glad to see so many of your faces i havent seen in years. Some of you are new to me altogether so im very glad to be meeting you for the first time tonight. I want to thank the doctor and the entire staff at the Dallas Institute for being so supportive of my work over the years whether it was in the form of books, manuscripts, screenplays, columns and magazine pieces. Doc ....
We are here to get to know one another and also to celebrate the publication of a very special book by joyce king exonerated. Many of you have already read that so you know whats in it and some of you have lived through something similar to that so you know about the life that is depicted in it and we are very honored to have joyce at the institute. Im going to turn it over to her and i will reappear later. For those of you that dont know joyce came i want to introduce her. Shes a native texan whos traveled the world over with a message of justice, hope and healing. Shes an awardwinning veteran broadcast journalist and was a news anchor. The story of the dragging in jasper texas. We probably remember that if we have the book and its a powerful look in the end it is published in 2,002. It received widespread coverage and discussion everywhere from good morning texas to the Oprah Winfrey show and shes also written a memoir growing up ....
Henry wade was the da . He was the longtime dallas da for almost three decades, and a lot of people remember him from roe v. Wade, of course. I call them in the book the prosecutor who was denied because while the polish off the ruby. A lot of people have a great a fight for every week. Im sure the legacy he left was due to him being a man of his time. Times change. There needs to be equal justice more so in the state. I just want to mention what were talking about justice, dont you believe that america is crying out for justice in some form or another all over, whether its ferguson, missouri . Whether its isis and beheadings . You see americans crying for justice. They want justice in some way or another, and that brings me to my longtime thesis, justice can open the door to even but we have to get it first. What was kings great quote, the arc of justice know, the arc of history is long but it tends towards justice speed back thank you. Nobel peace prize winner from 50 years ago octob ....
And he stayed after me and one of the last things he said before he was arrested last time was if somebody came through the store right now and offered me a billion dollars i wouldnt take it. I thought you know you would. [laughter] but i was joking with him because i wouldnt have taken a billion dollars either. So in my grief i stayed in bed about six months which caused people to be concerned about me that i had disappeared and i wasnt coming out but then that promise struck me and i kept hearing his voice and he said now george is going to give up on me youre going to let them forgive me and then when he died at the way that he did i kept playing it back and i thought im not going to let them throw it away. That is what is wrong with humanity right now in this country. We shouldnt get to decide because someone is is in a different zip code or has less money in their bank account that their lives have no value. What if it was your child or your husband or your loved one so i started ....
James woodard was not one of the three men. But the prosecutors in the trial hid that evidence from probably a very inexperienced courtappointed attorney who did not have it to share with the jury or the judge. And james was locked up no physical evidence connects him to the crime whatsoever. So i very much agree with you that prosecutorial misconduct needs to be looked at for all of the damage that it has done. No one is seeing prosecutors come forth and apologize to the men, and a lot of them are still living who prosecuted these cases. I would like to say in Michael Mortons case, we did get a slap at the judge in that case. And the Michael Morton law in texas was established. Ive not met mr. Morton, but i have written about him. So i think were starting to see a little bit more progress in that area. I remember bill hills tenure, if thats what you want to call it. It was ....