Henry Wade's Tough Justice

Book excerpt: Charles Chatman believed he would die in a Texas prison. He was sent there at age 21, convicted of raping a 52 year old white woman in his neighborhood, and sentenced to 99 years. The victim had picked his picture out of a line-up and the jury had ignored the testimony of his witnesses, that he was at work when the rape occurred. His court-appointed attorney made feeble efforts to defend him. He had served 27 years when Michelle Moore, a public defender working with the Innocence Project of Texas arranged a DNA test which proved him innocent, and District Judge John Creuzot ordered him released from prison. Richard Miles was more fortunate. After he had served 14 years of a 40 year sentence for murder, investigators for Centurion Ministries discovered police reports which had been hidden from him and his attorney, Ed Gray. A new trial was ordered, then the sole witness who had identified Miles recanted his testimony and claimed that he had been instructed to lie by a Dallas prosecutor. Over 250 prisoners in the U.S. have been exonerated in the last 20 years, some on death row and others serving long sentences. DNA testing has freed the majority, proof of false identification and misconduct by police and prosecutors the others. Dallas County, with one percent of the U.S. population, has accounted for 25 wrongful convictions, ten percent of the total. Henry Wade, Dallas County District Attorney for 32 years, ran the most aggressive and successful prosecutor's office in the country. Ed Gray, as Assistant District Attorney and criminal defense attorney had a ringside seat to the Henry Wade era. In these pages he explains how some of the innocent were convicted. TOUGH JUSTICE is the first book which attempts to portray the career and the history of Henry Wade, the most famous prosecutor in the history of Texas and perhaps the United States. After graduating from the University of Texas Business School and Southern Methodist University School of Law, Ed Gray was a civil law firm associate when he was appointed to represent an indigent defendant in Dallas District Court in 1969. In his first trial, Ed won a Not Guilty verdict and a job offer from District Attorney Henry Wade. He was quickly promoted to Felony Court, where he led the Dallas D. A.'s office in trials and convictions for the next four years. He was lead counsel in 15 murder trials, 13 attempted murder and aggravated assault trials, 8 rape trials, and 49 robbery trials resulting in sentences as high as death and 1200 years and only one Not Guilty verdict. Ed Gray has been a board certified criminal defense attorney since 1975, and has tried 525 criminal jury trials in state and federal courts.