Inside Out
A group of young activists reclaim the language and words that have been used to define them.
Pamela Colloff joined Texas Monthly as a staff writer and worked her way up to an executive editor before leaving in 2017. Her work has also appeared in the New Yorker and has been anthologized in Best American Magazine Writing, Best American Crime Reporting, Best American Nonrequired Reading, and Next Wave: America’s New Generation of Great Literary Journalists.
Colloff was nominated for six National Magazine Awards during her time at Texas Monthly. She was nominated in 2001 for her article on school prayer, and then again in 2011 for her two-part series, “Innocence Lost” and “Innocence Found,” about wrongly convicted death row inmate Anthony Graves. One month after the publication of “Innocence Lost,” the Burleson County district attorney’s office dropped all charges against Graves and released him from jail, where he had been awaiting retrial. Colloff next received nominations for “Hannah and Andrew” and “The Innocent Man,” which earned a National Magazine Award for feature writing. In 2015, she was nominated for a National Magazine Award for “The Witness.” Her story “96 Minutes” served as the basis for the 2016 documentary Tower, which was short-listed for an Academy Award for best documentary film. Colloff also served as one of the film’s executive producers. She further explored the subject of the 1966 UT tower shooting in her story “The Reckoning,” which was a finalist for a 2017 National Magazine Award in feature writing.
Colloff holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Brown University and was raised in New York City. She lives in Austin with her husband and their two children.
A group of young activists reclaim the language and words that have been used to define them.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, much of the mainstream media failed to understand voters in Middle America. Not Dan Rather. His early recognition of Trump’s viability, and a late embrace of social media, has made the 85-year-old Wharton native more relevant than ever.
Evangelist Lester Roloff drew a line in the dirt to keep the State of Texas from regulating his Rebekah Home for Girls. Years later, then-govenor George W. Bush handed Roloff's disciples a long-sought victory. But this Alamo had no heroes—only victims.
Fifty years after the Tower shooting, the University of Texas is finally honoring the victims. What took so long?
Fifty years ago, when Claire Wilson was eighteen, she was critically wounded during the 1966 UT Tower shooting. How does the path of a bullet change a life?
In the 56 years since Irene Garza's murder, there has only been one suspect: John Feit, the priest who heard her last confession.
Pamela Colloff writes about the first prosecutor to be disbarred under a new law in Texas.
Twenty-two Texans on why they will (or won’t) go to the ballot box.
The legacy of the Voting Rights Act.
A small measure of justice was served when the State Bar of Texas stripped Charles Sebesta of his law license and formally disbarred him.
Nine years after Hannah Overton’s nightmarish journey through the criminal justice system began, it ended just as abruptly.
The fastest road in America does not cross the Mojave Desert or the big sky country of Montana. Instead, it cuts through an unexceptional stretch of farmland southeast of Austin, where the posted speed limit on Texas Highway 130 jumps to 85 miles per hour. The so-called Texas Autobahn
In a 5–4 ruling on June 26, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the Constitution guarantees the right for same-sex couples to marry across the country. Here is the story of two women who fought for that historic decision in Texas—and helped to make it a reality.
The famously conservative court surprises everyone by signaling it might overturn the ban.
Corpus Christi Mother of Five Released on Bond.
Pamela Colloff on holding prosecutors accountable.
Dusty Burke, now a partner at the prestigious firm Vinson & Elkins, talks about graduating from law school during an era when women were not expected to use their degrees.
And now the Nueces County DA must decide whether to retry her.
For more than a decade, Michelle Lyons’s job required her to watch condemned criminals be put to death. After 278 executions, she won't ever be the same.
Excerpts from his book "Getting Life: An Innocent Man's 25-Year Journey from Prison to Peace."
The State Bar of Texas has found “just cause” to pursue disciplinary action against Charles Sebesta, the district attorney who sent Graves to death row.
How did he perform in eight areas that are critical to the state? The grade book is now open.
Mimi Swartz is a staff writer based in Houston.
Plan a summertime weekend at this luxurious (and kid-free!) adult summer camp.
Recovering at a luxurious (and kid-free!) adult summer camp.
The Corpus Christi mother convicted of murdering her four-year-old foster son has maintained her innocence for eight years, and she finally had a chance to plead her case to Texas’s highest criminal court.
At a recent campaign event for Ricardo Rodriguez, a former district judge who is running to replace Rene Guerra as Hidalgo County’s district attorney, Edinburg mayor Richard Garcia took to the podium to warm up an already enthusiastic crowd. Garcia offered boilerplate campaign rhetoric, trumpeting the 41-year-old candidate’s accomplishments
In 1998 famously tough Montague County district attorney Tim Cole sent a teenager to prison for life for his part in a brutal murder. The punishment haunts him to this day.
Graves will formally ask the State Bar of Texas to take action against Charles Sebesta, the former district attorney who sent him to death row.
Anthony Graves was wrongfully convicted of capital murder in a trial where the prosecutor, Charles Sebesta, withheld evidence that could have helped prove Graves’s innocence. So why hasn’t Sebesta been held accountable for his egregious misconduct?
What will an independent audit of Anderson’s old criminal cases turn up?
After President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, scores of Americans wrote letters to the first lady to express their grief. The most heartbreaking were those with a Texas return address.
Graves used funds he received from the state for his wrongful conviction to set up a law school scholarship in the name of Nicole Cásarez, the Houston attorney and journalism professor who fought for eight years to secure his freedom.
After President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, scores of Americans wrote letters to the first lady to express their grief. The most heartbreaking were those with a Texas return address.
After endless denial of wrongdoing, Ken Anderson, who put Michael Morton behind bars for 25 years for a crime he did not commit, resigned from the bench days before his own civil trial was set to start.
Twenty-six years after Michael Morton was sent to prison for a murder he didn’t commit, his wife’s killer was finally brought to justice.
Arrest warrant is issued for former Williamson County district attorney Ken Anderson, the man who prosecuted Michael Morton and helped put him in prison for nearly 25 years for a crime he didn't commit.
“The big monster with the big mustache” is sentenced to life in prison.
On the third day of Mark Alan Norwood's capital murder trial, an old friend testified that Norwood sold him the .45 that disappeared from Michael Morton's home after his wife, Christine, was murdered in 1986.
DNA testing of a blue bandana exonerated Michael Morton. Could the small square of cloth also be the linchpin that seals Mark Alan Norwood's fate?
Prosecutors say they will prove that Norwood sold a .45 pistol that was stolen from the Morton home.
Al Reinert discusses An Unreal Dream, his new film about Morton, who was wrongfully convicted of killing his wife and served nearly 25 years in prison for the crime.
UPDATED: A Brownsville construction worker named Manuel Velez was sent to death row in 2008 after he was convicted of killing his girlfriend’s baby. Five years later, new testimony from a number of forensic experts suggests that the medical evidence against Velez was deeply flawed. Now he may receive the
The final day of the court of inquiry into alleged prosecutorial misconduct by former Williamson County D.A. Ken Anderson ended with the man who helped put Michael in prison for 25 years for a crime he didn't commit calling the accusations against him "so bogus it’s unreal.”
More testimony suggested that the former Williamson County D.A. may have withheld evidence that could have proven the innocence of Michael Morton.
Michael Morton testifies at the inquiry for the former Williamson County district attorney who sent him to prison for a crime he didn't commit.
Ken Anderson, the former Williamson County D.A. who prosecuted Michael, will essentially go on trial as the subject of a “court of inquiry,” an arcane legal procedure used to investigate possible wrongdoing by state officials.
State district judge Jose Longoria stated that "all of the supposedly newly-discovered evidence ... was clearly known and discussed at the time of trial."
Williamson Country District Attorney John Bradley faced a resounding defeat in a race that became a referendum on his handling of the Michael Morton case.
David Jones, one of Overton's defense attorneys during her 2007 trial, broke down on the stand.
Ex-prosecutor Sandra Eastwood is put on the hot seat and questioned about whether or not she withheld critical evidence from the defense.