Dallas County Exonerates Executed Man Tommy Lee Walker

Dallas County officials have posthumously exonerated Tommy Lee Walker, a Black man executed nearly 70 years ago for the 1953 assault and murder of a white woman in Texas, declaring his conviction a profound miscarriage of justice marred by false evidence and racial bias.

Walker, who was 19 at the time of his arrest, was put to death by electric chair on May 12, 1956, at the age of 21. The case stemmed from the September 30, 1953, attack on 31-year-old Venice Parker, a store clerk walking home from work in Dallas. Parker was sexually assaulted, stabbed in the neck and left bleeding on the street. She flagged down a passing car and was rushed to a hospital, where she died from her injuries. The incident occurred amid widespread fear in the community, fueled by reports of a peeping tom suspected to be a Black man targeting women, according to the Dallas County District Attorney's Office.

An extensive review by the district attorney's Conviction Integrity Unit, conducted with assistance from the Innocence Project and Northeastern University School of Law's Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project, uncovered significant flaws in the original investigation and trial. Shortly after...