Black men being falsely accused of rape (or any other crime for that matter), and being convicted with very little evidence was (and possibly is) really not that uncommon in the South of the US. You can be sure that the judge and jury had a bias against him.

Do you have proof that such bias existed in this man's case?  You can't assume that racism clouded the judgement of all 12 juries without some evidence.

Until there's evidence of racism, let's just say that a inocent man went to jail because of a bad trial, not that a black man went to jail because of racism.

This news makes me feel embarrassed to be a Texan. Believe it or not, this happens often in Texas.

You may want to do some research. I'm from the South. Virgiina to be more specific. Where interracial marriage was illegal until 1970. We had a Robert E. Lee/Stonewall Jackson/Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday until 2000. They split them into two Holiday's. Various military bases, roads, schools, etc. are named for Confederate leaders. US. Route 1 is called Jefferson Davis Highway in Virginia. There is a school in the area I'm from called the Lee-Davis Confederates. No if all that stuff is public what do you think happens behind closed doors. Maybe I'm off the mark, can anyone in Germany tell me if Nazi leaders receive similar state sanctioned honors?

Side note: Cases like this are part of the reason why I don't support the death penalty. The other reason is I don't like "do as I say, not as I do" policies. Murder is illegal, so for committing murder we are going to murder you. Makes a lot of sense doesn't it -_-

Everything you just said doesn't matter. I'm aware that there is likely more racism in the southern US, but you should only accuse someone when you have proof, otherwise you may be ruining the name of many people without anything to back it up.

Saying "oh, but black people were harmed a lot in the south" is just pointless, and I plead for reason.

Declared innocent.  He's lucky he wasn't declared dead!  They don't bullshit around in Texas.

Because the man was black. Huh-doy. More, because statistically, black men are more often wrongly accused by an enormous degree:

http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Facts_on_PostConviction_DNA_Exonerations.php

Talk whatever you want, those numbers speak for themselves.

While I don't have proof, it's really common sense that that's what happened. Maybe there hav e been some professional studies done on this matter.

It doesn't matter. Unless you have proof that there was prejudice for this man's case, you are simply talking out of your ass.

The most idiotic part is that your link just further supports my argument, because those 158 black men wrongfully convicted are statistically insignificant compared to the hundreds of thousands of black people convicted. Those 158 represent less than 0.05% of black people convicted.

Are we going to cry "racism" everytime an african is convicted? Should we also cry "racism" when a white man is convicted? Or how about a latino? Or an asian?

No, it's not common sense, I can think of reasons much more likely for the wrongful conviction than shouting "racism". Having a crappy defense lawyer is a very good reason, and that has probably put more innocent people behind bars than racism.