Why A Man Declared Innocent Can't Get Out Of Prison
Just past 10 p.m. on a summer night, attorney Cheryl Wattley is standing near a quiet street in West Dallas, reconstructing an old crime.
It's a moonless night. One street light and one porch light from a nearby house illumine the scene, nearly identical conditions to the night 30 years ago, when a young man was left to die on the street not too far from here.
Wattley points toward a man standing under the street light, a private investigator named Daryl Parker, as he positions himself in the alley 40 feet away.
"Can you identify him?" she asks.
I squint. It's nearly impossible to see anything.
"You see a silhouette of a man," Wattley says. "You can't even see his face."
On the night of the killing, witnesses said they could see more than a silhouette. They identified Benjamine Spencer and another man running away from the scene. Their testimony helped send them to prison.
But was Spencer guilty? He maintains his innocence. A trial judge even declared Spencer innocent and concluded the evidence that put him behind bars was falling apart. That was 10 years ago. A higher court ruled that was not enough to warrant a new trial. And Spencer remains in a maximum security prison.
This is how he got there.
On March 22,
