I couldn't agree with Kristi more. Governor Perry should sign the posthumous pardon for Timothy Cole and he should do so now. What is he waiting for? Is he afraid that such a pardon will make official the huge injustice perpetrated against Mr. Cole by the State of Texas?

Mr. Cole was convicted (it turns out, wrongly) and sentenced to 25 years in prison for the 1985 rape of Michelle Mallin. He said he was innocent and he said it time and again. But Ms. Mallin identified him in a photo lineup and then later identified him in a physical lineup. Her identification of Mr. Cole was "among the strongest evidence against [him] at trial," according to the foreman of the jury that convicted him.

There has been extensive research and a lot written on the problems with eyewitness identifications, which are often unreliable, especially if made without certain safeguards. Lots of innocent people have been convicted based on bad eyewitness identifications.

Eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide, playing a role in more than 75% of convictions overturned through DNA testing.

While eyewitness testimony can be persuasive evidence before a judge or jury, 30 years of strong social science research has proven that eyewitness identification is often unreliable. Research shows that the human mind is not like a tape recorder; we neither record events exactly as we see them, nor recall them like a tape that has been rewound. Instead, witness memory is like any other evidence at a crime scene; it must be preserved carefully and retrieved methodically, or it can be contaminated.

Here in Texas, there were attempts this past legislative session to reform eyewitness identification procedures to make them more reliable and to exclude from evidence identifications that were not made with specific lineup methods. Guess who was against such reform?

Gov. Rick Perry vowed to veto any bill that applied laws on evidence exclusion to eyewitness identifications, said Keith Hampton, legislative director of the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Apparently, Governor Perry.

Timothy Cole died in prison in 1999. He died serving time for a crime he did not commit--as DNA evidence and the real perpetrator's confession later showed. Maybe Governor Perry doesn't want to sign Mr. Cole's posthumous pardon because he can't reconcile what happened to Mr. Cole with his position against reforms that could help stop the same thing from happening to other innocent Texans.

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