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On August 5, 1977, Kerry Max Cook was arrested for the rape and murder of Linda Jo Edwards (Cook, 2007). Almost 1 year after Cook’s initial arrest, his trial finally began. During the trial, Cook was presented with evidence the State had collected against him, and his attorneys were provided the opportunity to cross-examine all adversarial witnesses. He was also allowed to call his own witnesses, build his own evidence, and present his own theory of the facts. After the State and his defense rested their cases, he was granted the right to a verdict from a jury of his peers. After a verdict of guilty was returned, a separate sentencing judgment was rendered, and Kerry Max Cook was sentenced to death by lethal injection. Cook spent 19 years on death row (Cook, 2007). During that time, he attempted suicide twice—the second time he left a note stating,“I really was an innocent man....” In November of 1996, Cook’s conviction was overturned by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, who cited repeated episodes of prosecutorial misconduct. This decision effectively nullified all legal procedures involving Cook’s case that occurred after his arrest in 1977. While awaiting his fourth trial, the State approached him with several offers involving a guilty plea—he rejected all of them. Finally, on the first day of jury selection, the State offered Cook a plea deal for a sentence of time served, which would require no admission of guilt. The deal would release Cook from incarceration immediately. Cook reluctantly agreed to the deal, but only after altering the evidentiary form to reflect his innocence—a stipulation that his defense team assumed would be a deal-breaker.

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