TYLER, Texas — Kerry Max Cook, who was recently found innocent in connection with a 1977 Tyler murder, filed a new lawsuit against Smith County and the city of Tyler for hardship he endured after spending several years on death row.
Cook’s attorneys filed a lawsuit against the City of Tyler, Smith County and 15 current or former law enforcement officers, including Eddie Clark, Eric Liptak, Douglas Collard, Robert Bond, Gerald Hayden, Nelson Downing, Fred Mayo, Kenneth Findley, Ronald Scott, Ronnie Malloch, Marvin T. McLeroy, Stuart Dowell, Jake Massey, J.B. Smith and Gene Carlson.
In an interview with CBS19, Cook said he intends to set the record straight and hold those responsible for the lack of justice in his trial accountable.
"I'm the prosecutor, and I get to hold them accountable," Cook said. "I get to expose the lies, the things that cause me to be wrongly convicted and close to being executed. And so the civil suit is really important. It's about accountability and justice for Linda Jo Edwards."
In the lawsuit filed last week, he asks jurors to determine the damages for violations of Cook's rights, including violations of due process, malicious prosecution, destruction of evidence, and conspiracy. He was previously declared innocent of Edwards' murder in June.
Cook said he hopes for a Smith County jury to hear his truth for the first time in 47 years and gain a real vindication in the case.
After nearly five decades of trying to clear his name, Cook is now focusing on the police misconduct investigations that he believes played a role in his wrongful conviction.
"My wrongful arrest, my indictment and my subsequent nearly four capital murder trials and convictions - it's the roles of the Tyler Police Department, a relic from the old Smith County justice era, 1977-78 in which I was arrested, tried and convicted in. That's what this lawsuit is about," Cook said.
Cook said his fight for justice has not been without tremendous cost to his mental and physical health. Cook suffered a stroke and has undergone three life-threatening heart surgeries, but said so long as people are suffering injustice in Tyler, he feels responsible to be a spokesperson for them and to stand up for them.
"It's been a costly fight nearly five decades," Cook said. "But I refuse to give up. The bottom line, the real story here is the man Smith County couldn't kill, couldn't execute, the inmates, couldn't kill, and in the end, I couldn't even kill myself through the depression of it all."
Cook described his experience on death row as "traumatic," and it shaped his views on the criminal justice system. During his time on death row, Cook studied law and said he often had to act as his own advocate and even his own lawyer.
"I refused to give up, because justice always mattered the most to me," Cook said. "No matter how many people would tell me that I couldn't win, the system was too stacked against me, I refuse to accept that, and I still do today."
In filing his lawsuit against Smith County and the city of Tyler, Cook said he hopes to bring about change to the legal system that prevents others from undergoing the same experience as himself.
"I think that this lawsuit is the only way to bring about change," Cook said. "I made a big decision, even after 47 years of suffering tremendously and not able to get a job because of a wrongful murder conviction and all that. I made a decision that I wanted to hold them accountable instead, because, in holding them accountable, that's what's going to bring about change nothing else."
He added, "I want to change the way people are handled in Smith County, especially poor people."
Cook cited extraneous offenses and hearsay evidence as key issues, which need to be changed in Smith County's legal system. Extraneous offenses are violations of the law unrelated to the main crime being investigated, which Cook accuses Smith County judges of allowing during the guilt-innocence phase of the trial improperly.
"Now, at the punishment phase, it is admissible, but people who are innocent never should get to a punishment phase for that to happen, so it's a extremely low bar of proof," Cook said. "Smith County has a history of the judges allowing extraneous offenses to go before the jury at the guilt or innocent phase and not at the punishment phase. So I like to see that changed among other things."
Cook also said he hopes to end qualified immunity for police, which he says impeded justice in his case and reduces accountability for officers on trial. Quality immunity is a law that protects officials, including law enforcement, from being held legally responsible unless a person's clearly established constitutional rights were violated, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
"So police officers have have immunity where they can lie, cheat and steal their way into convicting someone," Cook said. "They can't be held accountable. I'd like to see that changed. I think there's something morally wrong with that."
As for people currently sitting in prison under wrongful convictions, Cook said to never give up hope.
"Hope is the main element of life. It's like water. Without it, we dehydrate," Cook said. "Hope is the most important thing, no matter how bad it looks, no matter how dark, no matter how impossible it looks, if you hold on to hope and you just believe, and you don't give up, there's always a chance you can win. If you're innocent, if you're being honest and you've suffered an injustice, don't give up. Because if you give up, everyone else gives up on you too."
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