Timothy Brian Cole, born in Brenham in 1960, served in the U.S. Army and attended Texas Tech University in Lubbock. In September 1986, while a student there, he was accused of assaulting a fellow student, convicted by a jury, and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Before trial he was offered probation in exchange for a guilty plea, and in prison he was offered parole if he would admit guilt, but he refused to take blame for a crime he did not commit. He died in prison in December 1999 at age 39 from complications from asthma. In 2007, after the Innocence Project of Texas received a letter from an inmate confessing to the crime, physical evidence confirmed that the other man was guilty and Cole was innocent. The victim joined Cole's family in seeking to clear his name, and in April 2009, after a court of inquiry hearing in district court in Travis County, the court declared him innocent of the crime "to a 100% moral, legal and factual certainty." In response, the other two branches of Texas state government also cleared his name and record. In 2009, the 81st Texas Legislature enacted the Tim Cole Act to compensate wrongly convicted individuals and created the Timothy Cole Advisory Panel on wrongful convictions to help reverse other wrongful imprisonments and prevent future miscarriages of justice. In March 2010, the Texas Governor's Office issued the first posthumous pardon in state history. Cole's legacy became a promise of fairness for all Texans, expressed in words he wrote from prison: "I still believe in the justice system, even though it doesn't believe in me."