Cause

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JERRY WAYNE JOHNSON, Plaintiff,

V.

OF

JEFF BLACKBURN, Defendant.

LUBBOCK COUNTY, TEXAS

COMPLAINT

WITH JURY DEMAND ENDORSED HEREON

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PARTIES

Plaintiff, JERRY WAYNE JOHNSON, a state prisoner,

#461145, resides in the Price Daniel prison facility of the Texas

Department of Criminal Justice, 938 South FM 1673, Scurry County,

Snyder, Texas, 79549.

Defendant, Jeff Blackburn, a Texas lawyer, and the legal

director of the Innocence Project of Texas, resides in Amarillo,

Texas, practices law and directs the Innocence Project through his

Amarillo, Texas law office address of 718 West 16th, Amarillo, Texas,

79101.

SERVICE OF PROCESS

Plaintiff requests the Clerk of the Court issue summons and

direct Lubbock County Sheriff's Office serve the 'summons to the,

defendant named above and at the address listed above for the

defendant.

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1 • COt-IPLAIN'I

Pursuant to Rule 22 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure,

Plaintiff state the following complaint against defendant.

2. JURISDICTION AND VENUE

Jurisdiction is conferred upon this Court by Rule 22 of the

Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, which authorizes Texas state courts to decide state questions.

Venue is proper in this Court because the defendant is a resident of Texas and a substantial part of the events giving rise to the claim occurred in Lubbock County, Texas.

3. In May of 2007, Plaintiff, unknowing that Mr. Timothy Brian Cole was deceased, wrote and mailed him a letter that confessed to Plaintiff committing the sexual assault offense he was con~icted of in Lubbock County, Texas, in 1986.

4. Mr. Cole's mother received the letter, and on May 23, 2007, she contacted the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal newspaper with it for assistance in clearing her son's name of the sexual assault.

5. In June of 2007, Plaintiff confessed to committing the sexual assault to a reporter from the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. On June 10, 2007, the p~per published a story about the confession.

6. On June 12i, 2007, defendant., legal director of the Innocence Project of Texas, solicited Plaintiff for a wroitten, signed statement of details about committing the sexual assault. ~efendant

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advised Plaintiff that Mr. Cole's mother had given him permission to handle the issue of his innocence.

7. Subsequently, the Lubbock Criminal District Attorney's Office become involved in the matter, requested and obtained from Plaintiff a DNA sample for testing. In June of 2008, that office revealed the results of the testing established that Plaintiff, instead of Mr. Cole, committed the sexual assault on the victim, Michelle Mallin.

8. The Lubbock Criminal District Attorney's Office advised in official and public statements that Texas law provided no legal remedy whereby the final conviction of a deceased defendant could be vacated.

9. Due to the fact that the statute of limitations period for prosecution of the offense had expired, the Lubbock Criminal District Attorney's Office was prohibited from indicting .J. •• ,.

and instituting a criminal judicial proceeding against Plaintiff.

10 Defendant, recognizing the unavailability of a legal remedy to have the conv Lc t Lon vacated in Mr. Cole's circumstance, sought to by way of a petition for a court of inquiry filed in the convicting trial court. The petition requested judicial findings that Plaintiff committed the offense and that Mr. Cole was innocent. Plaintiff submitted written objections to this arbitrary and unlawful action of the defendant's. On August 5, 2008, the

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court denied the petition.

11~ Unsatisfied with the fact that there was no judicial remedy available in Texas law to seek to have Mr. Cole's conviction vacated and Plaintiff brought to account for his crime in a court of law, defendant, through apparent judicial favoritism, was allowed by the Judge of the 299th Judicial District Court of Travis County, Texas, a court with no jurisdiction over the conviction, to create and institute a criminal judicial proceeding wherein Plaintiff was the defendant found guilty

of committing the offense and Mr. Cole found innocent.

12. During a 2 day bench trial, with defendant acting as a prosecutor, defendant proffered and argued documentary

evidence bearing Plaintiff's guilt of the judicially time barred offense. Pursuant to this evidence, on February 6, 2009, the 299th Disttict trial court of Travis County, Texas, ruled that Mr. Cole was innocent of committing the sexual assault offense.

13. In an order later issued on April 7, 2009, the 299th District trial court of Travis County, Texas, further found that Plaintiff was guilty of committing the judicially time barred sexual assault offense instead of Mr. Cole.

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14. For the reasons enumerated above, Plaintiff alleges that the defendant engaged in and committed the following wrongful and intentional tortious acts against him:

(A) defendant had full knowledge and understanding that Plaintiff had a clear right to enjoy the statutue of limitations bar of a judicial proceeding being instituted against him for committing the sexual assault offense.

(B) defen~ant had full knowledge and understanding of Plaintiff's statute of limitations right, but still wrongfully and intentionally sought and instituted a created criminal judicial proceeding against Plaintiff, without an indictment

of a grand jury, without lawful prosecutorial authority and jurisdiction, proffered evidence of guilt against him and obtained a judicial finding of guilt against him for committing the sexual assault offense.

(c) defendant had full knowledge and understanding that no provision of Texas law, Texas Constitution or the United States Constitution authorized him to instituted a criminal judicial proceeding against Plaintiff in the manner that he did, to act as prosecutor, nor to seek and obtain a criminal judicial finding that Plaintiff committed the sexual assault offense instead of Mr. Cole.

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(D) defendant had full knowledge and understanding when

he sought and instituted the criminal judicial proceeding

against Plaintiff that no provision of Texas law authorized

the 299th District trial court, or any Texas trial court, to

find in such created proceeding that Plaintiff committed the

sexual assault ,offense, that Mr. Cole was innocent, nor to

vacate his finch felony conviction.

(E) defendant had full knowledge and understanding that

his actions in obtaining the trial court order finding

Plaintiff guilty of the judicially time barred felony crime

of aggravated sexual assault effectively secured a wrongful and unlawful adjudication of guilt against P1lintiff.

(F) defendant had full knowledge and und rstanding that

his actions before the 299th District trial curt deprived

Plaintiff of his Texas Statutory and United Sates

Constitutional rights when they subjected him to a time

barred criminal judicial proceeding and had h'm found guilty

of a felony crime without a lawful indictment and trial by

a jury of his peers.

(G) defendant had full knowledge and understanding that

his actions before the 299th District trial court were

completely wrongful, intentional, unlawful, and an act of

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vigilante just ce against Plaintiff for having committed the sexual assault offense and avoided a judicial adjudication.

{H) defendant has full knowledge and understanding that he has utilized the plainly void trial court order to: (1) fraudulently petition the State of Texas with the otders finding of guilt against Plaintiff to obtain a posthumous paroon of Mr. Cole; (2) fraudulently consider or seek to request from the State of Texas allowable wrongful convIction compensation for its wrongful conviction of Mr. Cole or use as a factual or legal basis for instituting a wrongful conviction lawsuit; and (3) cause Plaintiff to suffer mental pain and emotional distress by conveying in the~~~tttibh=~nd accompanying papers that obtained the pardon the judicial finding of guilt against Plaintiff and other unadjudicated crimes he believes Plaintiff committed that has damaged his status as a rehabilitated prisorter and damaged his liberty interests in parole as punishment for committing the sexual assault.

14. Plaintiff demand a jury trial.

PRAYER FOR RELIEF

WHEREFORE, Plaintiff requests the following relief.

1. That Plaintiff do have and recover from the defendant a monetary award for punitive damages in the highest amount authorized by Texas law.

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2. That Plaintiff do have and recover from the defendant Plaintiff's cost in this suit.

3. That Plaintiff be awarded any other just relief.

DATED:

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