Seventy years after Texas executed him in the electric chair at just 21 years old, Tommy Lee Walker was formally exonerated by the Dallas County Commissioners Court last week. According to the Innocence Project, it is the first posthumous proclamation of innocence by a commissioners court in Texas.
“Justice has no statute of limitations,” the court wrote, “and, when injustice is discovered, it should be recognized and acknowledged.”
The unanimous declaration is based on a comprehensive investigation by the Dallas County District Attorney’s office, journalist Mary Mapes (whose reporting reopened the case in 2016), the Innocence Project, and the Northeastern University School of Law’s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (led by professor Margaret Burnham), who presented their findings to the court last week.
“Riddled With Racial Injustice”
Tommy Lee Walker was just 19 years old when he was wrongfully convicted for the rape and murder of a white woman he had never met. It was, the court found, “a period in Dallas and throughout the United States marked by racial segregation, systemic injustice, and inequality within the criminal justice system.”
White residents of racially segregated Dallas were “in a state of frenzy” over reports of a “Negro Prowler” targeting white women when Venice Parker, a white 31-year-old store clerk, was killed on September 30, 1953.
A police officer claimed she told him “a Negro” had attacked her. Even though her throat had been cut and other witnesses denied she spoke at all, the Dallas Police Department “rounded up dozens of [B]lack men who had absolutely no connection to the case,” Mapes wrote.
Mr. Walker was one of the innocent Black men caught up in this dragnet—he was picked up four months after the crime because police were told he might have information about an unrelated nonviolent crime. He lived miles from the crime scene and did not have a vehicle. He had a solid alibi—several people had seen him that evening at the hospital three miles away attending the birth of his son.
And there was no forensic evidence. In fact, the court found, Mr. Walker had no ties to the crime or the crime scene.
But during an hours-long interrogation without a lawyer, Homicide Bureau Chief Will Fritz—a known member of the Ku Klux Klan, which was “basically rampant” in that era—falsely told Mr. Walker the police had evidence that proved his guilt and threatened him with the death penalty unless he confessed. Mr. Walker signed a confession and then recanted almost immediately.
“Tommy Lee Walker’s constitutional rights were violated at every turn,” said Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot. “[The investigation was] riddled with racial injustice during a time when prejudice and bigotry were woven in every aspect of society.”
“Tricked Out of My Life”
The coerced confession was the only evidence connecting Mr. Walker to the offense, but Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade, still early in his now infamous career, was undeterred from prosecuting Mr. Walker for the murder.
Wade systematically struck non-white jurors, withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense, and told the jury he wanted to personally “pull the switch” on Mr. Walker. The prosecutor even “took the witness stand on rebuttal and testified to his own personal belief that Mr. Walker was guilty.”
It was later revealed that Wade instructed his prosecutors to strike “Jews, Negroes, Dagos, Mexicans or a member of any minority race” from juries—an illegal practice known to increase the risk of wrongful convictions.
Indeed, according to data from the National Registry of Exonerations, Mr. Walker is at least the 35th person convicted by Wade to be exonerated.
The all-white jury convicted Mr. Walker and sentenced him to death only three months after his arrest.
When the judge asked him if he had any final words for the court before he was sentenced, he said softly, “I feel that I have been tricked out of my life.”
The State of Texas killed Mr. Walker in the electric chair on May 12, 1956. He was just 21 years old, and he used his last words to proclaim his innocence.
Lasting Harm, Finally Acknowledged
Mr. Walker’s prosecution was especially painful for Black residents of Dallas, thousands of whom stood outside the Dallas County courthouse during the trial, according to the Dallas Observer.
His execution filled the Black community with anger and sorrow that persists today.
“Walker is dead, but he will forever live in the minds and conscience of those who have the ability to reason,” wrote the publisher of the Dallas Express, a Black newspaper that, according to Mapes, printed the names of all 5,000 people who attended Mr. Walker’s funeral.
The Walker case contributed to the harm of racial injustice in Dallas that “many still feel,” Mapes said.
Mr. Walker’s son, Edward Smith, was only two years old when his father was executed. Growing up without his father was “a nightmare,” he told the court in emotional testimony. As a young child, he couldn’t understand what had happened to his father. “As I grew older, I realized that he wasn’t coming back. That the electric chair…”
“I’m 72 years old, and I still miss my daddy,” he said through tears.
The Dallas County Commissioners Court unanimously exonerated Tommy Lee Walker at its January 21 hearing.
Joseph Parker, the son of Venice Parker, embraced Mr. Smith at the hearing before urging the court to acknowledge that Mr. Walker did not kill his mother.
The court formally affirmed Mr. Walker’s innocence in a unanimous declaration read by Commissioner John Wiley Price.
“Mr. Walker’s arrest, interrogation, prosecution and conviction were fundamentally compromised by false or unreliable evidence, coercive interrogation tactics, and racial bias,” the court wrote. It formally acknowledged his wrongful conviction and execution as “a profound miscarriage of justice” that caused harm to him, his family, and the community, as well as the victim’s family.
“[T]his County deems it a moral obligation to acknowledge the injustice surrounding the conviction of Tommy Lee Walker, confront history, and affirm Dallas County’s commitment to justice for all persons, whether living or deceased,” the resolution reads.
“[T]his declaration, issued in the interest of truth, accountability, and community healing, shall stand as a permanent and public acknowledgment by Dallas County of this injustice and as a solemn reminder of the County’s duty and continued commitment to equal justice under the law and the protection of constitutional rights for all people.”