Last year, Watkins took the reins of an office that had long had been soiled by legendary lawman Henry Wade, hero to law-and-order, James Q. Wilson-types throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Wade took a strident, string-em-up, conviction-at-all-costs approach to law enforcement. When he retired in 1986, the Dallas Morning News released a memo Wade's office issued to city attorneys instructing them, "Do not take Jews, Negroes, Dagos, Mexicans or a member of any minority race on a jury, no matter how rich or how well educated," when it comes to jury selection. The memo was first issued in the 1960s, but still circulated as late as 1976.

The man who now inhabits Wade's old office couldn't be a starker contrast. Watkins made history last year as Dallas' first black district attorney, and immediately went about undoing the remnants of Wade's legacy.

After his election, Watkins instituted significant reforms to the way Dallas fights and prosecutes crime, including major changes to the way police conduct lineups and interrogate suspects. He stopped the inexplicable tradition of destroying death penalty files after conviction, which is often a barrier to DNA-based innocence claims down the line. He fired overly aggressive subordinates, and caused still more to resign in protest or frustration.

But most notably, Watkins not only hasn't fought innocence and wrongful conviction claims, he's been seeking them out, correctly understanding that a prosecutor's job isn't to see how many people he can throw in prison, it's to work toward the fair administration of justice.

Watkins set up his own task force to work with the Texas Innocence Project to investigate wrongful conviction claims. His is the only DA's office in the country to work directly with an Innocence Project chapter. Since 2001, 13 people in Dallas County alone have been exonerated and released from prison after DNA testing. Watkins' task force will now look at 350 more cases. Dallas now has the highest exoneration rate in the country, and trails only New York and L.A. in total exonerations. Watkins' efforts means those numbers are only likely to grow.

We need 5000 more just like him.  I don't know whether I am more happy to know about him, or more depressed because the story of a man who does his job they way they all should has the word "hero" bouncing around in my head.

Full story here.