Texas State Comptroller Glenn Hegar has reject­ed an appli­ca­tion for com­pen­sa­tion filed by death-row exoneree Alfred DeWayne Brown, assert­ing that the court pro­ceed­ings lead­ing to his release did not con­sti­tute a deter­mi­na­tion that he was ​“actu­al­ly inno­cent.” Brown had applied for approx­i­mate­ly $1.9 mil­lion in cash and annu­ity pay­ments under Texas’ exon­er­a­tion com­pen­sa­tion law. Harris County pros­e­cu­tors dis­missed charges against Brown in June 2015, after he had spent a decade on death row for the mur­ders of a Houston police offi­cer and a store clerk dur­ing a rob­bery. The Texas courts over­turned Brown’s con­vic­tion because pros­e­cu­tors improp­er­ly with­held a phone record that showed Brown was at his girl­friend’s apart­ment near the time of the rob­bery and mur­ders. There was no phys­i­cal evi­dence against Brown and a Houston Chronicle inves­ti­ga­tion revealed that a police offi­cer who was appoint­ed grand jury fore­man in the case had threat­ened the girl­friend with per­jury for ini­tial­ly sup­port­ing Brown’s ali­bi and that pros­e­cu­tors had jailed her for sev­en weeks until she changed her tes­ti­mo­ny to impli­cate Brown. The com­pen­sa­tion deci­sion high­lights the recur­ring ques­tion of revic­tim­iza­tion of wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed death-row inmates result­ing from denials of com­pen­sa­tion. Louisiana sim­i­lar­ly denied com­pen­sa­tion to death-row exoneree, Glenn Ford, who was suf­fer­ing from ter­mi­nal can­cer. The author of that state’s com­pen­sa­tion law recent­ly called that denial ​“a grave injus­tice and mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the law,” and with the sup­port of Ford’s for­mer pros­e­cu­tor, Marty Stroud, has intro­duced a new bill to pro­vide com­pen­sa­tion to Ford’s family.

Brown’s lawyer said that the comp­trol­ler’s deci­sion ​“ignores what the Texas Supreme Court has clear­ly said regard­ing the right to com­pen­sa­tion” and that Brown will appeal the ruling.

(B. Rogers, Comptroller: Former death row inmate not eli­gi­ble for exon­er­a­tion funds, The Houston Chronicle, April 7, 2016; G. Hilburn, ​“Glover files bill to com­pen­sate Glenn Ford’s fam­i­ly,” The News-Star, April 6, 2016.) See Innocence.

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