Undue Process

"I had based my decision on evidence which was very compelling and beyond a reasonable doubt," Greene says. "I was proud of myself that I let them run the DNA again. He didn't really have the right to do that. But I thought, 'Why not?' Luckily the system did work."

The truth is the system didn't work. Every safeguard designed to keep an innocent man from being convicted of a heinous crime failed, even at the appellate level. "The procedural safeguards built into the system to protect an innocent man are pretty much ignored by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals," says John Hendrik, a former misdemeanor county court judge and Karage's defense attorney. "Very few convictions are reversed now compared to 20 years ago." He points out that nationwide about 140 felons have been cleared because of DNA tests. Of those, 39 were Texas inmates, or about 26 percent of the total.

Karage just got extremely lucky--lucky that the database had been created, lucky that Jordan had been caught and convicted of a serious sex crime, lucky that Hendrik felt obligated to continue to represent him for no charge, lucky that the judge agreed to the test after the DA's office had repeatedly opposed it. If one of those links had been missing, Karage would still be in prison for life.

An examination of the trial transcript, witness statements, police reports and appellate briefs reveals something even more shocking.

Except for an alleged motive, there was no evidence against Karage.

"I couldn't believe it," says Lawrence Mitchell, one of the top criminal appellate attorneys in Dallas, who represented Karage on appeal. "There's not a shred of evidence he committed the crime. I don't know how Karen Greene came to the conclusion he was guilty. It's bad judging all the way through. I think a first-year law student would have seen he wasn't guilty. I have never seen a case this egregious."

Hendrik agrees. "She didn't know the rules of evidence."

It didn't end with Greene. "You can add the Texas Court of Appeals to the list of those who had a chance to save Karage and failed," Mitchell says.

How did it happen? Karage, it seems, got caught in a "perfect storm" of bias, arcane legal rules and procedures, and downright incompetence.

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Wonderful earthy smells come from the kitchen of the small house in Richardson where Entre Karage lives with his grandmother, mother, sisters, wife, various children and at any given time other members of their extended family. Sister Kim Houp stirs something on the stove. A tiny woman with short white hair squats in the Asian fashion on the floor, chopping meat on a butcher block.

Short and stocky, 34-year-old Karage has a shaved head and wide shoulders, which are more muscular than the days when he weighed 140 pounds.

Karage has few memories of Cambodia except sadness. His father disappeared and is presumed murdered by the Khmer Rouge. The remaining family fled their home, living in the jungle and then in a refugee camp in Thailand for several years. They came to America in June 1981 when he was 8. Born Savon Houp, he changed his name when he became an American citizen in 1994. Entre Nax Karage, his full name, means "giant eagle that lives in heaven" in Cambodian.

As a teenager Karage studied the wisdom of "my people," the ancients who often came to him in dreams to teach him lessons, he says. The most important such "shaman" was his late great-grandmother, who is portrayed in a tattoo on his calf as a powerful female warrior. The ancients, Karage says, got him through his time in prison. He has tattoos of ancient gods and goddesses on his back, arms and chest.

Before coming to Dallas, Nary had lived with her family in California. A snapshot shows a dark-eyed girl wearing an ankle-length flowered dress and a shy smile. Sometimes called Linda, Nary stood 5-foot-2 and weighed 104 pounds. Like lots of teenage girls, she liked jewelry and adorned herself with gold rings, bracelets, necklaces and earrings. Karage often gave her money. But there were signs Nary was unhappy with the relationship. At one point Nary went back to her mother's house, also in the neighborhood. But Karage begged her to return, and she did.

In a statement to police, Karage told his version of what happened that day. He and Nary had left home at 11 a.m. to deposit money in the bank and then went to the video store. Karage gambled with Pro Sok, a co-worker named Kelea and several other young men. Saying she wanted to go to the nearby Minyard's, Nary left and took the car.

"I told her to go home and pick me up later," Karage said. Home was about four or five blocks away. But when Nary hadn't returned, Karage left a message for his boss saying he wouldn't make it to work. Pro Sok drove him around to look for Nary and took Karage home after 30 minutes. He watched TV from about 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., waiting for her to return or call. His aunt drove him around from 5:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. looking for Nary. About 6:15 p.m., Karage said, he left the house and walked around the neighborhood.