By KERA News & Wire Services
Dallas, TX –
A wrongly convicted man freed by DNA evidence is suing his civil lawyer and an Innocence Project of Texas official who helped secure his freedom.
Patrick Waller contends Lubbock lawyer Kevin Glasheen and the Innocence Project of Texas want too large a chunk of the nearly $1.3 million he received for spending 16 years in prison.
Waller was wrongly imprisoned in 1992-2008 and is one on a growing list of Texas DNA exonerees upset over what they contend are excessive attorney fees. He filed suit this week in state district court in Dallas.
Glasheen says he earned his fees and dismissed the lawsuit as "a weak claim." An attorney for Innocence Project of Texas attorney Jeff Blackburn says his client should be commended for his work freeing the wrongly convicted, not sued for it.
Attorney General Greg Abbott files for re-election
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is running for re-election.
The Republican, first elected in 2002, had been considering a run for lieutenant governor. Instead, he filed Tuesday for a third term as the state's top attorney.
Abbott, who had $9.4 million in the bank as of this summer, is the prohibitive frontrunner in the March Republican primary. Lawyer Barbara Ann Radnofsky, who ran for the U.S. Senate in 2006, has filed to run in the March Democratic primary.
American: 2 engines broke off in Jamaica landing
Both engines of an American Airlines jet tore off as the plane overshot a runway while landing during a rainstorm in Jamaica.
Fort Worth-based American spokesman Tim Smith said Wednesday that "both engines were removed or taken off the wing as it happened," as designed to do for safety reasons.
Smith says two of the 148 passengers on Flight 331 from Miami were admitted to a hospital for treatment of non-life threatening injuries from Tuesday night's accident in Kingston. Smith says the crew of six also was transported to hospitals, as a precaution.
Smith says the landing gear of the Boeing 737-800 was damaged and the fuselage has two cracks.
American, the nation's second-largest carrier, will work with the National Transportation Safety Board, the Federal Aviation Administration and Jamaican authorities to determine the cause of the accident.