Posted on Tue, Apr. 29, 2008

By JEFF CARLTON
Associated Press Writer

DALLAS -- Days after he was jailed on New Year's Day 1981 for a murder he said he did not commit, James Lee Woodard began writing letters proclaiming his innocence to anyone who might listen.

More than 27 years later, Woodard is likely to become the longest-serving wrongly convicted man in the nation to be exonerated by DNA testing, his lawyers said.

Woodard was expected to be released on bond Tuesday after a DNA test showed he did not commit a 1980 murder, said Jeff Blackburn, chief counsel for the Innocence Project of Texas.

The Dallas County District Attorney's office is not opposing the request for bond, agreeing with defense lawyers that Woodard, now 55, was wrongly convicted in 1981.

Read the entire article HERE [1].