Alfred Dewayne Brown Declared Actually Innocent

Death-row exoneree Alfred Dewayne Brown (pic­tured) was declared ​“actu­al­ly inno­cent” by Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg on March 1, 2019, mak­ing Brown eli­gi­ble for state com­pen­sa­tion for the time he spent wrong­ful­ly impris­oned on Texas’ death row. ​“My oblig­a­tion as an advo­cate is not to tell peo­ple what they want to hear but to tell them the truth,” Ogg said at a press con­fer­ence. ​“Alfred Brown was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed through pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct.” Brown was freed in 2015, ten years after he was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for the mur­ders of a Houston police offi­cer and a store clerk dur­ing a rob­bery. Until the dec­la­ra­tion by Ogg, Brown was inel­i­gi­ble for com­pen­sa­tion because Texas law requires that, if a pris­on­er is exon­er­at­ed by the dis­missal of charges against them, they can­not receive com­pen­sa­tion unless the pros­e­cu­tor says in an affi­davit that he or she ​“believes that the defen­dant is actu­al­ly inno­cent of the crime for which the per­son was sentenced.”

Brown’s exon­er­a­tion gained momen­tum fol­low­ing the dis­cov­ery of excul­pa­to­ry phone records in the garage of a Houston police offi­cer in 2013 that cor­rob­o­rat­ed Brown’s claim that he was at his girlfriend’s apart­ment just min­utes before the killings took place and could not pos­si­bly have been at mur­der scene at the time of the killings. Prosecutor Daniel Rizzo claimed that the records had been acci­den­tal­ly mis­placed, rather than inten­tion­al­ly with­held. But in 2018, Ogg’s office dis­cov­ered an email show­ing that Rizzo knew about the records well before Brown’s tri­al. A time­line of the case showed that Rizzo’s inves­ti­ga­tor had sought out the records in an attempt to rebut grand jury tes­ti­mo­ny by Brown’s girl­friend that he spoke to her by phone from her apart­ment short­ly before the mur­ders. Rizzo then threat­ened her with pros­e­cu­tion and jailed her until she changed her tes­ti­mo­ny. ​“It is impos­si­ble to exam­ine the con­vic­tion of Alfred Dewayne Brown with­out con­fronting pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct,” wrote spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor John Raley, who con­duct­ed more than 1,000 hours of inves­ti­ga­tion into Brown’s case and pro­duced the report that led to Ogg’s actu­al inno­cence dec­la­ra­tion. ​“ADA Daniel Rizzo presided over a Grand Jury that abu­sive­ly manip­u­lat­ed wit­ness­es to sup­ply evi­dence for a cho­sen nar­ra­tive. He was pro­vid­ed notice of the exis­tence and mean­ing of excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence, failed to pro­duce it to the defense and avoid­ed it dur­ing tri­al. Further inves­ti­ga­tion of his con­duct is war­rant­ed.” In his report, Raley con­clud­ed, ​“By clear and con­vinc­ing evi­dence, no rea­son­able juror would fail to have a rea­son­able doubt about whether Brown is guilty of mur­der. Therefore his case meets the legal def­i­n­i­tion of ​‘actu­al innocence.’”

Lawyers who had worked on Brown’s appeals laud­ed the announce­ment. Attorney Casey Kaplan said, ​“The con­so­nant bell of jus­tice rings loud­ly today and shares what Alfred Brown’s fam­i­ly, sup­port­ers and attor­neys have known for over a decade — that he is actu­al­ly inno­cent. It is a good day.” Brian Stolarz, the lead attor­ney who secured Brown’s exon­er­a­tion, said, ​“We are heart­ened that he found what we have known all along: Dewayne Brown is actu­al­ly inno­cent and was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and impris­oned. We com­mend the District Attorney’s com­mit­ment to the truth and ensur­ing that mis­car­riages of jus­tice like this nev­er hap­pen again in Harris County.” Houston’s police union expressed anger at the deci­sion, hold­ing a sep­a­rate press con­fer­ence imme­di­ate­ly after Ogg’s. Union pres­i­dent Joe Gamaldi urged the police depart­ment to bring the case back to a grand jury.

(Jolie McCullough, Prosecutor declares freed Texas death row inmate Alfred Dewayne Brown inno­cent, paving way for state com­pen­sa­tion, Texas Tribune, March 1, 2019; Keri Blakinger, Special pros­e­cu­tor finds Alfred Brown ​‘actu­al­ly inno­cent’ in cop killer case, Houston Chronicle, March 1, 2019; Alvaro Ortiz and Andrew Schneider, Harris County DA Exonerates Former Death Row Inmate Alfred Dewayne Brown, Houston Public Media, March 1, 2019.) Read Report of Special Prosecutor John Raley to District Attorney Kim Ogg Regarding Alfred Dewayne Brown, March 1, 2019. See Innocence.