Trials of Kerry Max Cook

What’s important about the Cook decision?

Exoneration of a murder/capital murder conviction is a rare and phenomenal event in the criminal justice system. In general, exoneration means the person convicted is officially cleared based on new evidence of actual innocence. Only 16 people sentenced to death in...

Why So Long?

t took the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals eight years to to rule on an actual innocence claim filed by Kerry Max Cook who served two decades on death row for the 1977 murder of Linda Jo Edwards in Tyler, Texas. "The road to this point has been long, much of it...

A Brief Look

  The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals exonerated Kerry Max Cook in the 1977 murder of Linda Jo Edwards in an 8-1 decision released June 19, but not all of the majority agreed he is actually innocent. In a concurring opinion, presiding Judge Sharon Keller agreed...

Court exonerates Cook involving 1977 murder

Kerry Max Cook, a Texas man who spent 20 years on death row, has been officially exonerated. In a 106-page opinion released Wednesday, June 19, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that Cook, now 68, is innocent of the 1977 murder of Linda Jo Edwards. The...

Evil First

Five federal prisoners are set to be executed beginning in December as the U.S. government prepares to resume the death penalty after 15 years — a move some are calling “Evil First.” All five men — three white, one black, one Native American — were sentenced to die...