ESSAY
Making News

BY JEFF CRILLEY

Surrounded by his family, Donnie Johnson took a seat on the living room sofa of his mother’s house in Fort Worth, Texas. He swallowed hard as my photographer adjusted the lights and checked the sound levels.

“Are you ready?” I asked Donnie. He nodded.

“You know that by saying this on camera, you could go to prison?” I asked. “Whatever it takes,” he said, his voice beginning to tremble. “If going to prison will set my brother free, I’m ready. He shouldn’t be in there for something I did.”

It was the confession his family had been waiting years to hear. “I love you,” cried Donnie’s seventy-two-year-old mother as she wrapped her arms around her son. “I knew the Lord wouldn’t let you keep it in.” Donnie sank into his mother’s arms and cried the tears of a little boy begging for forgiveness.
Naively, I thought that powerful story, which ran on my station, KDFW-Fox 4 in Dallas, last February, was the end of my journey to free an innocent man. The truth was, I’d barely begun.

Years ago I had seen a story on the national news about a man released after serving a lengthy sentence for something he hadn’t done. I remember being touched by the emotional reunion with his family and I promised myself that one day I would play a role in helping such a reunion take place.

Last December I learned of a program run by the University of Houston law school called “The Innocence Network.” Professor David Dow’s students go through thousands of inmate letters looking for people they suspect are actually innocent. Dow put me in touch with Cathy Helenhouse, a second-year law student, who told me about James Byrd. While reviewing his case, Helenhouse had discovered that two years ago James’s older brother, Donnie, had signed an affidavit confessing to the robbery for which James was serving thirty years in Eastham prison. Helenhouse says she was amazed that such a document failed to make an impact on Texas officials. Despite Donnie’s confession, James’s appeal had been denied.

It’s one thing to confess on paper, I reasoned. It’s another to take it public. I figured if someone is on TV saying, “I did it, lock me up,” certainly the justice system can’t look the other way.

But it wasn’t that simple. After showing a clip of the tearful confession to the man who sent James to prison, Alan Levy, the assistant Tarrant County district attorney, he said, “Our job isn’t to prove people innocent.”

Levy left the door open just a crack, though. “If you get a polygraph from the brothers and they pass,” he said, “we’ll talk.”

At that point I asked myself, as a journalist, what my role was in all this. Is my job to report the news or make it? Arranging lie detectors to prove someone’s innocence seemed to cross some line. But the truth is, I couldn’t walk away. I had put a powerful story on TV and won the praise of my colleagues. But what had I really accomplished?

I decided to push a little further. I contacted Jeff Kearney, a prominent criminal defense attorney from Fort Worth, and asked if he’d take the case pro bono. He agreed without hesitation. He’d seen my report and was convinced the wrong brother was in prison. Rick Holden, a nationally known polygraph examiner, had also seen the stories and agreed to test the brothers.

Donnie was the first to be tested and he passed with a nearly perfect score. But testing James proved to be more difficult. Just hours before the polygraph was to take place, James and Donnie met for the first time in almost five years — not since they faced each other in the courtroom and Donnie lied on the witness stand, denying involvement in the crime.

“I’m sorry I put you through this, man,” Donnie said. He hugged James, who was handcuffed and shackled, and began to cry. “I’m ready to trade places with you.”

James sat silently, crying, then released years worth of anger and hurt. “I accept your apology,” he said. “I love you too.”

It was a powerful piece of television, but it was also way too much emotion for a man who was about to be hooked up to a machine that monitors vital signs. Also, Rick Holden had discovered that James suffered from high blood pressure, which had been previously undiagnosed, and which would render the test invalid. Even the introductory questions like, “Are you in the state of Texas right now?” sent his readings off the chart.

James was returned to jail and placed on medication to bring his blood pressure under control. As cjr went to press, James was still waiting to be retested.

I have no doubt that he will pass. The homeowner has consistently said she was robbed by one man, and given the results of Donnie’s lie detector test, it’s clear Donnie was that man. If their stories are finally confirmed by polygraphs, the district attorney’s office has agreed to write a letter to the Board of Pardons and Paroles and the governor asking that James be released. And given the national publicity this case has received, the state will probably act quickly.

I plan to be there if James finally walks out of prison. He’ll hug his mother, who’s had to watch her family be divided all these years. He’ll kiss his fiancée, Jacqueline, who has never wavered in her support. And he’ll hug Donnie, who will no doubt be charged with the crime and whose televised confession may well guarantee his own conviction. “At least in prison,” Donnie says, “I’d be free.”

And if all that happens, I will have changed lives with perhaps the most important story I’ve ever told. Did I cross a line? Maybe. But if you’re not willing to go the distance, you should never start the journey.

---

Jeff Crilley is a reporter for KDFW-Fox 4 in Dallas.