![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/012126-pb-tommy-lee-walker-exoneration-vosot-dial__00.00.01.58.jpg\")
<\/p>\nDALLAS – Dallas County Commissioners symbolically declared a man innocent in a 1954 murder case.<\/p>\n
The district attorney said Tommy Lee Walker was coerced into a confession during a time of racial segregation and was convicted by an all-white jury.<\/p>\n
Tommy Lee Walker\u2019s Innocence <\/p>\n
What we know:<\/p>\n
Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot asked commissioners on Wednesday to pass a resolution acknowledging Walker’s innocence.<\/p>\n
Creuzot said his office conducted extensive research on the case with help from the Innocence Project after being contacted by Walker\u2019s son, who is his only living descendant.<\/p>\n
“In observance of the constitutional rights afforded to all citizens and in consideration of newly available scientific evidence, the Dallas County District Attorney\u2019s Office could not and would not have prosecuted Tommy Lee Walker for the rape and murder of Venice Lorraine Parker,” the DA said in a statement.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/012126-pb-tommy-lee-walker-exoneration-vosot-dial__00.00.14.58.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
The backstory:<\/p>\n
Walker was a 19-year-old father who was convicted and put to death by the electric chair for a crime the DA\u2019s office now believes he did not commit.<\/p>\n
Venice Parker, a 31-year-old white woman, was brutally attacked on her way home from work in 1953 and ultimately died.<\/p>\n
Multiple witnesses testified that she could not speak because of her injuries. However, a single white police officer claimed he heard her describe her attacker as a Black man.<\/p>\n
Creuzot said his review of the case found that hundreds of Black men were rounded up for questioning about the murder based simply on the color of their skin.<\/p>\n
The state allowed misleading evidence through the improper questioning of Walker. The DA at the time also took the witness stand and gave his personal belief of Walker\u2019s guilt before continuing his role as the lead prosecutor for the case, according to Creuzot.<\/p>\n
What they’re saying:<\/p>\n
Commissioner\u2019s Court was emotional as the county cleared Walker\u2019s name.<\/p>\n
FOX 4 also spoke to Walker\u2019s son after his father was cleared.<\/p>\n
“He told my mother and she told me. He said, \u2018You give me the chair that belongs to someone else. I am innocent.\u2019 That is the last thing my mother told me,” said Ted Smith, Walker\u2019s son. “This exoneration means the world to me.”<\/p>\n
The victim\u2019s son was also at the hearing and embraced Walker\u2019s son, apologizing for his family enduring the wrongful conviction.<\/p>\n
Dig deeper:<\/p>\n
Walker\u2019s case is the oldest case investigated by the Dallas County DA\u2019s Conviction Integrity Unit.<\/p>\n
The Source: The information in this story comes from a news release from the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office and interviews with family members.<\/p>\n
Dallas County<\/a>Crime and Public Safety<\/a>Dallas County Commissioners Court<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS – Dallas County Commissioners symbolically declared a man innocent in a 1954 murder case. The district attorney…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1046,102,581,12138,104,103,223,1827,216,393],"class_list":["post-132463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-crime-publicsafety","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-county","tag-dallas-county-commissioners","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-news","tag-organization","tag-tx","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}