Person of the Day: James Waller

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JAMES WALLER, who was in a Texas prison for 11 years, was exonerated Wednesday by DNA testing thanks to the labs of the Innocence Project. Mr. Waller, convicted of sodomy based on the testimony of a 12-year-old, is the latest exoneration of 12 in Dallas County since 2001. “Nowhere else in the nation have so many individual wrongful convictions been proven in one county in so short a span,” said Barry Scheck, cofounder of the Innocence Project. He has vowed to find out why.

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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