{"id":1370612,"date":"2024-11-18T19:57:47","date_gmt":"2024-11-19T01:57:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1370612"},"modified":"2024-11-20T09:52:56","modified_gmt":"2024-11-20T15:52:56","slug":"kerry-max-cook-is-suing-tyler-and-smith-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1370612","title":{"rendered":"Kerry Max Cook is suing Tyler and Smith County"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"TYLER \u2013 Kerry Max Cook was found innocent of the 1977 murder of Linda Jo Edwards back in June and now he\u2019s suing Smith County and the City of Tyler. According to our news partner KETK, the allegations of his lawsuit are listed in a complaint filed by Cook’s lawyers Nov. 14. The complaint alleges that the City of Tyler, Smith County and several named officials violated his civil rights by engaging in a \u201chomosexual witch-hunt\u201d which led to him spending 20 years on death row for a crime he\u2019s been found innocent of by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.<\/p>\n

Cook stated in the release, \u201cFor over 20 years I fought for my life from a death row cell,\u201d Cook said in a press release. \u201cAfter being kicked out the back door of Smith County\u2019s legal system in 1999, I fought for another 25 years to clear me and my family\u2019s name. This year, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals finally declared me \u2018actually innocent,\u2019 but my struggle does not end there. Today, I am pressing forward with a civil suit against the officers who framed me and against the broken Tyler and Smith County police agencies that let it happen.\u201d
\n <\/p>\n

The murder charges against Cook were dropped back in 2016 after a key witness reportedly admitted to lying in previous trials. By 2016, Cook had already been out of prison for several years after he took a deal in 1998 that convicted him of murder but did not require him to admit guilt.<\/p>\n

That witness was James Mayfield, who Cook\u2019s complaint said was once in a relationship with Edwards. His complaint said that officials he\u2019s suing \u201cactively and systematically disregarded, downplayed, and concealed obvious evidence pointing to the victim\u2019s married, 44-year-old disgruntled ex-lover, James Mayfield.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis case is riddled with allegations of State misconduct that warrant setting aside Applicant\u2019s conviction,\u201d Judge Bert Richardson wrote in the Criminal Court of Appeals majority opinion back in June of this year. \u201cAnd when it comes to solid support for actual innocence, this case contains it all \u2014 uncontroverted Brady violations, proof of false testimony, admissions of perjury and new scientific evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

The complaint then lists evidence they say implicated Mayfield in Edward\u2019s death. They allege this evidence was ignored and that the evidence against Cook was manufactured after the defendants made a \u201csham psychological profile of the killer as a homosexual man\u2014fueled entirely by bigotry rather than police investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the complaint begins to list their facts of the case they allege that Cook wasn\u2019t the only person accused in this fashion. \u201cIn the mid-1970s, during the years leading up to the Edwards murder, law enforcement officials working for the City of Tyler and Smith County operated under an unwritten policy to rid the County of \u201cundesirable\u201d citizens, including LGBT people, by fabricating evidence to implicate those people in crimes they did not commit,\u201d the complaint alleged.<\/p>\n

Cook also said in the complaint, \u201cMy civil suit seeks justice and accountability for the injustices done to both Linda Edwards\u2019 family and mine by framing me for a crime I didn\u2019t commit. But it\u2019s also for the many others who have suffered injustice at the hands of Smith County\u2019s dark history.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the City of Tyler said that they don\u2019t comment on pending litigation. Smith County officials were also asked to comment on this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TYLER \u2013 Kerry Max Cook was found innocent of the 1977 murder of Linda Jo Edwards back in June and now he\u2019s suing Smith County and the City of Tyler. According to our news partner KETK, the allegations of his lawsuit are listed in a complaint filed by Cook’s lawyers Nov. 14. The complaint alleges … Continue reading Kerry Max Cook is suing Tyler and Smith County<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":1370619,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2016\/06\/Kerry-Max-Cook-e1731981258145-201x200.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1370612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-10 07:01:01","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2016\/06\/Kerry-Max-Cook-e1731981258145-201x200.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1370612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1370612"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1370612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1370618,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1370612\/revisions\/1370618"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1370619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1370612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1370612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1370612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}