Exonerated by the Evidence, Convicted by the System

At 21-years-old, Kerry Max Cook was sentenced to death for the rape and murder of an East Texas woman. He was tried and re-tried nearly four times over 22 years in what is considered, "...the worst documented example of police and prosecutorial misconduct in Texas history." Twenty years after his first conviction, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned his conviction, and prosecutors still refused to drop the charges against Kerry. After rejecting multiple plea deals, Kerry reluctantly accepted a plea-of-no-contest in exchange for immediate freedom. Kerry's plea did not include an admission of guilt or the standard "Stipulation of Evidence." Despite this, the judge accepted Kerry's no-contest plea, the first and only in a Capital Murder case in Texas, and he was released. Two months later, the results of a DNA test showed that semen found in the victim's underwear belonged to her 45-year-old, married ex-boyfriend, James Mayfield. Despite this exonerating DNA evidence, Kerry remains convicted of a murder he did not commit.