Tommy Lee Walker exonerated by Dallas County 70 years after execution

Nearly 70 years after the state of Texas put him to death, Dallas County officials formally exonerated Tommy Lee Walker, a 21-year-old Black man executed two years after being wrongfully convicted of the rape and murder of a White woman.

Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot on Wednesday asked commissioners to sign a resolution acknowledging Walker’s innocence after finding he was coerced into a confession and convicted by an all-White jury.

The case, the oldest assigned to the Dallas County DA’s Conviction Integrity Unit, involved Walker, a 19-year-old accused of raping and murdering Venice Parker, a 31-year-old White woman, on her way home from work in 1953.

On the night of the killing, Walker was visiting his girlfriend, Mary Louise Smith, who was nine months preg­nant, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPI).

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Though witnesses confirmed he was with Smith, he was prosecuted for the murder, which happened 3 miles across town, FOX 4 Dallas reported.

Walker’s son was born the day after the killing on Oct. 1.

Multiple witnesses testified Parker was unable to speak after the attack due to a gash in her neck. However, one police officer claimed she described her attacker as a Black man, according to the DPI.

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During a review of the case, the district attorney’s office learned hundreds of Black men were questioned about the killing, solely based on their race.

Walker was allegedly interrogated for hours with­out an attor­ney, and authorities told him he would face the death penal­ty unless he con­fessed, according to the DPI. 

Walker signed a con­fes­sion but almost imme­di­ate­ly recant­ed. There was no oth­er evidence against him. 

Officials also said the state allowed misleading evidence during the trial, and the prosecutor took the stand himself as a witness and told the jury Walker was guilty, according to FOX 4.

“I feel that I have been tricked out of my life,” Walker said at his sen­tenc­ing hear­ing.

Walker was executed by an electric chair May 12, 1956, at 21 years old.

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“In observance of the constitutional rights afforded to all citizens and in consideration of newly available scientific evidence, the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office could not and would not have prosecuted Tommy Lee Walker for the rape and murder of Venice Lorraine Parker,” Creuzot wrote in a statement.

Creuzot said his office dove into the case with assistance from the Innocence Project after Walker’s son, his only living descendant, brought it to their attention.

Walker’s son, Ted Smith, 72, gave testimony at his father’s posthumous exoneration, noting his moth­er nev­er recov­ered after the exe­cu­tion.

“He told my mother and she told me. He said, ‘You give me the chair that belongs to someone else. I am innocent.’ That is the last thing my mother told me,” Ted Smith told FOX 4. “This exoneration means the world to me.”

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The resolution stated the county “deems it a moral oblig­a­tion to acknowl­edge the injus­tice sur­round­ing the con­vic­tion of Tommy Lee Walker, con­front his­to­ry, and affirm Dallas County’s com­mit­ment to jus­tice for all per­sons, whether liv­ing or deceased. … [J]ustice has no statute of limitations.”

Parker’s son, Joseph Parker, 77, also attended the hearing, hugging Smith and apologizing for the loss of his father.