Mr. Dupree is the latest victim of the formerly overzealous Dallas law enforcement system to be freed by the Innocence Project. DNA testing proved Dupree had not committed the rape he was convicted of committing.
Another man, Anthony Massingill, who was arrested and convicted, along with Dupree, for the same 1979 rape, is still behind bars, due to a conviction on a second, likely equally bogus rape. DNS testing is currently being done to exhonerate the second victim of this most recent revelation of a Dallas miscarriage of justice.
Dupree was only 20 when he was arrested and falsely accused. He has lost 31 free years of his life. I can't imagine what this would be like. I would be sort of mad, I think.
Due to Texas having an embarrassingly high number of these type wrongful conviction cases being overturned by modern era DNA testing, in 2009 the Texas Legislature passed America's most generous compensation law for the wrongly convicted.
Texas has freed 41 wrongly convicted victims via DNA testing since 2001, the highest number in the nation.
Under the Texas Compensation Law Dupree is owed $80,000 per year of incarceration, plus a lifetime annuity. Dupree could receive a total of $2.4 million. A sum not subject to federal income tax.
I read of Dupree's freedom in this morning's Seattle P-I. I saw no mention of this in the online Dallas Morning News or the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Did I somehow miss it? Or did the two local newspapers of record not consider this news? While the Seattle P-I online featured this bit of news in a way that I did not miss it.
Perplexing.
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