Letter From Tyler
Trial and Error
After an appeals court overturned the convictions of two Texans implicated in a child sex ring, the latest defendant went on trial with the same judge, the same evidence—and the same verdict.
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Tuesday, June 28th, 2011, 2:39 pm
Kerry MaxCook says:
“It shall be the primary duty of all prosecuting attorneys, including any special prosecutors, not to convict, but to see that justice is done. They shall not suppress facts or secrete witnesses capable of establishing the innocence of the accused.”
Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, Article 2.01
The small East Texas town of Tyler in Smith County is in the news again, for meting out yet another grave injustice. Earlier this month, at a pre-trial hearing before Smith County District Judge Jack Skeen, six of the seven apparently innocent “Mineola Swingers Club” defendants accused of breath-taking acts of sexual exploitation of children pled guilty to a lesser charge of “injury to a child” in exchange for their freedom. The six defendants have been in jail or prison since their arrest in 2007. Two of the defendants had their sentences overturned on appeal.
No one knows more about frame-ups, coerced plea-bargains, Jack Skeen and the Smith County District Attorney’s office than me. You could say I could – - and well, I did – - write a book about it.
My name is Kerry Max Cook. I am the author of CHASING JUSTICE: My Story of Freeing Myself After Two Decades on Death Row For a Crime I Didn’t Commit (Harper Collins).
For over 20 years, I was embroiled in a life and death battle with two generations of the Smith County District Attorney’s Office. First in 1977 with District Attorney A.D. Clark, III, and again in the ‘90’s with A.D. Clark’s successor and first cousin, former Smith County elected District Attorney Jack Skeen. It was a desperate mind-numbing legal nightmare to try and persuade someone – - ANYONE – - to believe the only reason I was sitting on death row facing an executioner was because A.D. Clark III and Jack Skeen both railroaded me there.
Before Jack Skeen’s appointment to the 241st Judicial District Court of Smith County in 2003 by Governor Rick Perry, Skeen served as the unbeatable elected Criminal District Attorney for 21 years.
Twenty-two years later, and nearly four capital murder trials later, Smith County versus Kerry Max Cook would go down in the annals of jurisprudence as the worst documented example of police and prosecutorial misconduct in Texas history as well as a sordid modern day retelling of Franz Kafka’s THE TRIAL. It is so compelling, author John Grisham wrote for the cover of CHASING JUSTICE, “If it were fiction, no one would believe it…”
An Arrest based on fraud
I was 19 years old when I was arrested on capital-murder charges in connection with the rape and murder of a 21-year-old woman named Linda Edwards in Tyler, Texas. The “evidence” used to support a legal requirement to establish probable cause was based exclusively on the manufactured allegations and outright perjury of a police detective. This prosecutorial suborned perjury would be used to deny bond, to attain indictment, and then to persuade a jury to convict and sentence me to death. First in an arrest warrant and later in secret testimony before the Grand Jury, this detective’s critical testimony was a lie — and prosecutors knew it. It was the first of several egregious fabrications, gross suppression of exculpatory evidence and the subornation of perjury used to support nearly three more trials, two reversals, two convictions, and an execution date. This malfeasance would have had me executed but for the intervention of the United States Supreme Court, which stayed Smith County’s death warrant, and later granted Certiorari, reversed the lower court’s decision, and remanded my case.
Solitary Confinement at the Smith County Jail
I was thrown naked in a dark isolation cell. My parents hired two local attorneys and paid them a total of $500 to represent me because that was all the money they had. For the next 11 months while I waited in darkness for a trial, A.D. Clark, III completely made up a case. Below are but a few of the well documented, judicially acknowledged examples of misconduct:
A.D. Clark, III and again through Jack Skeen in re-trials, suppressed the “highly exculpatory evidence” gained through a police investigation showing that the police were fully aware that I knew Ms. Edwards and was previously an invited guest in her apartment three days before her murder.
A.D. Clark, III pressured a crime-scene detective to provide critical false testimony: (a) to fraudulently obtain an arrest warrant for which no probable cause existed; (b) to fraudulently secure an indictment from the Grand Jury; and (c) to obtain wrongful convictions from two different juries. This detective testified that the only time my fingerprint could have been left on Ms. Edwards’s patio door was at the time of her rape and murder, and a police investigation uncovered no evidence that the she and I had ever met or known one another, all the while suppressing any/all evidence which directly contradicted this false testimony. It was a skit, which the detective and later Jack Skeen played out all the way to the United States Supreme Court, to try and have me executed.
A.D. Clark, III granted immunity from prosecution to a witness named Robert Lee Hoehn, an avowed homosexual, whom they claimed provided critical “key testimony” that established the mens rea for the rape and murder of Ms. Edwards. Both A.D. Clark, III and Jack Skeen suppressed any/all evidence of the same “critical key witness” that could have exposed this witness’s fraudulent testimony, such as his original sworn testimony before the secret Grand Jury and his sworn statements to the police.
“Fraudulent” testimony excluded; the reason “We had to let ‘em go.”
As a footnote, in reversing my wrongful conviction for a second time in 1996, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals called Jack Skeen’s “critical key witness” testimony a “fraud,” testimony gained only through “fraudulent practices.” Because it was perjury – - and Skeen knew it – - the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled Robert Lee Hoehn’s 1978 trial testimony inadmissible in any subsequent retrial as “evidence” against me. Ironically, District Attorney Jack Skeen would use it before the media as the reason “we had to let him (Kerry Max Cook) go, we had no case without it (the critical testimony of Robert Lee Hoehn)….”
Police coached the lone eyewitness to murder, who originally identified Ms. Edwards’s 45-year-old, married, ex-boyfriend as the killer, to change the details of her exculpatory sworn statement so I could be identified in court as the killer.
Prosecutors endorsed, promoted and then presented the junk-science of a hometown psychologist, whose degree was in educational counseling — not forensic psychology — to create a “psychological profile” that concluded the killer was a crazed, misogynistic homosexual killer of women. The psychologist, police, and prosecutors then worked in tandem to tailor this “psychological profile” to link me to Ms. Edwards’s rape and murder after arrest.
A.D. Clark, III and Jack Skeen allowed the pathologist to alter the time Ms. Edwards originally died, and moved the time of death up two hours to conform to the State’s theory in three critical areas: (1) to fit the detective’s testimony that made my fingerprint the killer’s calling card; (2) to put me at the apartment complex at large and in time to be identified inside Ms. Edwards’s apartment and be available for the lone eyewitness’s brand new identification of me as the killer; and finally (3) to overcome the State’s own sworn testimony that accounted for my whereabouts in the time span the pathologist originally claimed Ms. Edwards was murdered.
A.D. Clark, III and his First Assistant, Michael Thompson arranged a secret deal with an accused murderer named Edward Scott “Shyster” Jackson to secure a false jailhouse-confession story and then coached him on the details of the murder I was accused of so he could create a plausible story for the jury to help them convict me. Shyster was a career criminal.
Prosecutors A.D. Clark, III and Michael Thompson told Shyster that if he would help them obtain a conviction and a death sentence, they would drop his charge from murder to Involuntary Manslaughter and give him credit for the 22 months he had already served in the Smith County Jail since indictment and set him free. That’s exactly what they did, records showed.
Michael Thompson commits suicide
Shortly after Edward “Shyster” Jackson was released, he recanted and told the Dallas Morning News, a radio station reporter and others of his deal to supply false testimony and implicate me in Ms. Edwards’ murder. Trial prosecutor Michael Thompson stepped into his sister’s closet in Tyler and shot himself to death with a shotgun.
Upon reversal of conviction and a return to the Smith County jail to answer the original 1977 indictment of rape and murder charges, Jack Skeen’s Chief Felony Prosecutor met me at the jail and attempted to interrogate me behind the back of my counsel of record, whom the prosecutor knew was representing me.
The Dallas Morning News wrote I was “railroaded” to Death Row by overzealous prosecutors. After it was all over, The Houston Chronicle said, police and prosecutors had a “win-at-all-cost mentality” and would stop at nothing to make me appear guilty and have me executed.
District Attorney Jack Skeen did let me go finally, but not through the front door as an exonerated innocent man. With me prepared to return to death row with yet a third wrongful conviction and certain execution by refusing to plead guilty to a rape and murder I didn’t commit, and Jack Skeen afraid to lose the fourth trial but not willing to dismiss the charges against me, he offered a “No Contest” Alford-like plea with no admission of guilt. Either I accepted it or faced a fourth trial riddled by the same prosecutorial misconduct that had persuaded two different juries to convict and sentence me to death and return me to death row and a prison life of unspeakable abuses.
I accepted Jack Skeen’s offer but refused to sign the State’s mandatory “Stipulation of Evidence” that accompanied the No Contest plea: I refused to admit guilt because I was innocent.
DNA
Two months after I was kicked out the back door of Smith County’s legal system with a conviction for a reduced charge of murder, a law enforcement crime lab released the results of a semen stain found on the victim’s panties at the crime scene. The DNA belonged to none other than the victim’s married, 45-year-old, ex-boyfriend — the original suspect.
In a United States Supreme Court case styled Alford vs. State, the Court said a defendant could make an intelligent choice to accept a plea – -even though innocent, if it meant escaping more punishment. I don’t think the Court meant for prosecutors to wield their incredible might in such a way so as to force the innocent to accept convictions. As the Mineola Swinger’s Club cases show – - and Tyler defense attorneys can tell you – - Judge Jack Skeen and the Smith County District Attorney’s Office practice their own ad hoc rules of criminal procedure. This practice doesn’t include the intended justice of the Texas Rules of Evidence, or any other Penal Code. Their brand of law has it own name. It’s simply called “Smith County Justice.”
This city and its legal system have been the subject of national media scorn for decades. In the fall of 1980, Hugh Downs and Barbara Walters opened an episode of 20/20 with, “Run Away Justice: Crime and Corruption Marks the Small East Texas town of Tyler.” Based on an extensive investigation by The Dallas Morning News looking into allegations of corruption, 20/20 reported Smith County officials had framed over 100 suspects on charges that were later proven false. This systemic corruption reaching the highest levels of Tyler’s justice system was immortalized in a book entitled “Smith County Justice.” A motion picture was adapted called Rush, starring Jennifer Jason-Leigh and Jason Patrick.
Clarence Darrow once said, “True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else.” I keep hoping one day the right-thinking people of Smith County will wake up and do something about it.
Thirty-three years later I am still writing about injustice in Tyler because, after my long and arduous stay and near-execution on death row, I know all too well that in the absence of light, darkness will remain.
Friday, June 3rd, 2011, 5:19 pm
FeleciaPerez says:
I think that to get the mortgage loans from banks you must present a great motivation. Nevertheless, once I have received a small business loan, because I was willing to buy a house.
Wednesday, October 20th, 2010, 5:51 pm
mike says:
MW
Yes I did attend most of this past trial—and I’ve read almost every word of the transcripts of all four trials. So I’m not sure what you mean by those kids acting out sexually before they met the Cantrells. If you mean testimony such as in this past trial that Hunter had encopresis, even the prosecutor Mr. Bingham had to agree with the defense’s expert witness that this was not a sign of sexual abuse. I can’t remember any other evidence—maybe I missed something?
As for those 48 jurors giving Guilty verdicts, sometimes juries get it wrong—especially, I might add, if prosecutors can appeal to jurors’ emotions, as in a case involving terrible accusations of child sexual abuse.
And yes the children’s testimony was adjudged sufficient to convict-—by state law all you need is the word of a child to go to court against an adult for sex abuse. This has led, as you might know, to several cases of unjust convictions.
Finally, as for Mr. Wheeler, the DA of Wood County, the weirdest thing about his behavior during this whole matter is this: He refused to bring a case against these defendants, simply because he could find not one piece of physical evidence to back up those childrens’ accusations. What’s up with that?
Thanks for reading.
Michael Hall
Tuesday, October 19th, 2010, 4:12 pm
MW says:
Mr. Hall,
In your effort to spin your complete bias in this article you missed an important fact - Judge Skeen didn’t make the evidence that these young victims are telling the juries. Did you even bother to read the records or attend a trial? Those children have been sexually acting out since they left their fine drug addicted and perverted parents. They were sexually acting long before they ever met the Cantrells. That was evidence in all the trials. Did you miss that, or just conveniently leave it out? Would clash with your meme wouldn’t it?
I guess us rednecks here in East Texas are so gullible to believe these children. In fact, 48 separate citizens of this county have heard the evidence and found it sufficient. You like to mention the reversal by the 14th Court but you never seem mention that even that Court said the children’s testimony was sufficient to convict Kelly.
I’m sure you know all this, it just wouldn’t be much of a story with all of the truth in it now would it?
BTW - Jim Wheeler wouldn’t know corroboration if it stepped on his foot. I suppose you didn’t ask him why he didn’t present any victims to the Wood County Grand Jury, or any outcry witnesses, or any Rangers, or any of the CPS investigators that worked the cases?
There again, that would run counter to your preconceived sensationalized story. Wouldn’t sell would it?
Monday, August 23rd, 2010, 12:42 am
Linda says:
I, 0f all people, know that all this, is a bunch of "BULL". We really didn’t expect any other verdict in this case, sad to say. There is no Justice in any of these trials , no evidence 0f any sexual abuse with these kids, just the LIES that Margie has been feeding them all these years. I’m sure that she is happy about all this,having sent all these innocent People to prison, for something they didn’t do, just so she can maintain her lavish lifestyle, with all the money she makes off these kids. Wonder what would it be like if she didn"t get her one hundred thousand a year, hummmmmmmm, makes you wonder what she would do then. Do it out of "LOVE" and the so-called goodness of her "heart" I think not. skeen slapped down Patrick’s atty every chance he could and Thad was not allowed to present anything to this kangaroo court, and that fact was proven when the coa overturned the conviction, so whats going to happen now? samo samo. nothing has changed, just another time, same place. Oh and also like you all to know that bingham, knew that Patrick passed his Lie dectecter test with flying colors, but least we forget, this is truly our
"SMITH COUNTY INJUSTICE SYSTEM in it’s greatest form.
Saturday, August 21st, 2010, 2:02 pm
Disgusted says:
I just don’t understand some of these Tyler defense attorneys. Bobby Mims called Skeen "a great guy". This guy has been nothing but a sleaze ball for 30+ years. As a DA his office was notorious for withholding evidence, lying, sponsoring perjured testimony and doing whatever was necessary to win. As a judge he is completely biased, has not concept of contsitutional rights or the rules of evidence. He willfully and deliberately violates the law and the constitution in most cases he oversees, not just this one. He set ridiculous bonds when the DAs office wants to keep someone in jail to pressure them to plead.
This "great guy" is an evil sociopath. I’d be ashamed to say he was my friend.
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