Twenty-five years after Timothy Cole was wrongly fingered as the “Texas Tech rapist,” just more than 10 years after he died in prison, and about a year since he was officially exonerated in the courtroom of Travis County District Judge Charlie Baird, Gov. Rick Perry on March 19 hand-delivered to Cole’s family an official posthumous pardon, finally acknowledging Cole’s innocence. “It means the world to me to be here today to look you in the eye and tell you that your son is pardoned,” Perry told Cole’s mother, Ruby Session. “I know that nothing that anyone in this room, this state, or this world can do could restore Tim to life, but we can state clearly, with the full weight of Texas law behind us, that your son was no criminal.”

This article appears in March 26 • 2010.

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