Word: acted
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...Kevin Glasheen, who represents 12 men who were exonerated after serving lengthy terms for rape. "As far as the politicians go, there are a lot of Republicans who do not like abusive government power." But legislators from both parties did more than shed tears. Apart from the Tim Cole Act, they passed a second law creating a well-funded office of expert appellate lawyers to represent death-row inmates, a move to overcome the tales of sleepy defense attorneys and inept lawyering. The two new laws are now being implemented, and their backers hope they will mitigate the state...
...Cole Act provides $80,000 for each year of wrongful incarceration and adds free college tuition, plus financial and personal counseling. Unlike past lump-sum payments, the new compensation will be paid out in a mix of monthly payments, with an upfront lump sum and an annuity that can be passed on through a recipient's estate. The new law also sets up an investigative panel, the Tim Cole Advisory Panel on Wrongful Convictions. (Read about how the tide is shifting against the death penalty...
...both sides, Glasheen told them, and the fundamental question was one of fairness. This past spring, state senator Rodney Ellis, a Houston Democrat and a longtime champion of the Innocence Project, and state senator Bob Duncan, a Republican and - like Cole - a Texas Tech alumnus, sponsored the Tim Cole Act...
...Cole Act and the new state-funded appellate office may not change the image of Texas justice beyond the state. How outsiders feel about Texas justice "probably depends on whether you are universally opposed to the death penalty," Marsh says. "But the hope [in Texas] is that we will stop seeing stories where the defendant never had a fair shot...
...Despite these successes, K.K. will never be allowed to visit his mother or nine-year-old son back in California. In 1996, Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), which stipulates that any non-citizen living in the United States can be deported if convicted of an aggravated felony. From 1997 to 2005, about 675,000 non-citizens were deported for their crimes under the law, according to the Department of Homeland Security...