AUSTIN -- Gov. Rick Perry has given pardon documents to the family of a man who died in prison after serving 13 years for a rape he didn't commit.
Perry met Friday in Fort Worth with the family of Timothy Cole, nearly three weeks after the governor granted the state's first posthumous pardon.
“It means the world to me to be here today to look you in the eye and tell you that your son is pardoned,” Governor Perry told Ruby Session. “I know that nothing that anyone in this room, this state, or this world can do could restore Tim to life but we can state clearly, with the full weight of Texas law behind us that your son was no criminal.”
DNA evidence cleared Cole in 2008, nine years after he died at age 39 in prison of asthma complications.
Perry granted the pardon after the state attorney general clarified the law in January and the Innocence Project of Texas submitted a formal pardon request to the Board of Pardons and Paroles.
Cole's mother, Ruby Session, said she hopes her son's ordeal will help effect change and improvement in the Texas criminal justice system.
After meeting with Perry, the family headed to a cemetery to visit Cole's grave.
