Texas State Comptroller Denies Compensation to Death-Row Exoneree Alfred Dewayne Brown, Despite Declaration of Actual Innocence

The Texas State Comptroller has denied com­pen­sa­tion to death-row exoneree Alfred Dewayne Brown (pic­tured), despite a for­mal court dec­la­ra­tion that he is ​“actu­al­ly inno­cent” of the mur­ders of a store clerk and a Houston police offi­cer that sent him to death row in 2005. Claiming uncer­tain­ty as to whether a Harris County judge had juris­dic­tion to declare Brown inno­cent of the mur­ders, comp­trol­ler Glenn Hegar on June 26, 2019 denied Brown’s appli­ca­tion for com­pen­sa­tion for the 12 years he had been wrong­ly impris­oned. The Houston Chronicle edi­to­r­i­al board blast­ed Hegar’s deci­sion, call­ing it ​“out­ra­geous” and ​“shame­ful.”

Brown was exon­er­at­ed in 2015 based upon evi­dence that pros­e­cu­tor Dan Rizzo failed to dis­close to the defense phone records sup­port­ing Brown’s ali­bi that he was at his girlfriend’s house when Alfredia Jones and Officer Charles R. Clark were killed in April 2003 and could not have been involved in their mur­ders. While insist­ing the nondis­clo­sure had been inad­ver­tent, the Harris County District Attorney’s office acknowl­edged that it no longer had a case against Brown and dropped all charges against him. Subsequently, the office dis­cov­ered emails show­ing that a police inves­ti­ga­tor had per­son­al­ly alert­ed Rizzo to the exis­tence of the phone records and to the fact that they sup­port­ed Brown’s ali­bi. Even after receiv­ing that email, Rizzo had Brown’s girl­friend jailed until she recant­ed grand jury tes­ti­mo­ny that sup­port­ed Brown’s ali­bi and agreed to tes­ti­fy against him at trial. 

Brown first applied for $1.9 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion in 2016. At that time, say­ing he had no dis­cre­tion but to fol­low the let­ter of the law, Hegar denied the appli­ca­tion because Brown had not for­mal­ly been declared ​“actu­al­ly inno­cent.” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg com­mis­sioned spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor John Raley to inves­ti­gate the case and make a rec­om­men­da­tion con­cern­ing Brown’s inno­cence. After more than 1,000 hours of inves­ti­ga­tion, Raley pre­pared an exten­sive report rec­om­mend­ing that Brown be declared actu­al­ly inno­cent. He lat­er filed a dis­ci­pli­nary com­plaint against Rizzo, charg­ing that the for­mer pros­e­cu­tor had inten­tion­al­ly con­cealed evi­dence of Brown’s innocence. 

In March 2019, District Attorney Ogg signed a dec­la­ra­tion of actu­al inno­cence. Two months lat­er, District Court Judge George Powell re-opened Brown’s case, issued an order for­mal­ly declar­ing Brown ​“actu­al­ly inno­cent,” and again dis­missed the charges against him. Brown’s lawyers believed that would qual­i­fy him for com­pen­sa­tion, and a spokesper­son for the comp­trol­ler told the Chronicle, ​“Provided the new appli­ca­tion meets the qual­i­fi­ca­tions and pend­ing review from our office, yes, Mr. Brown would qual­i­fy for com­pen­sa­tion. He just needs to send us the paperwork.” 

Hegar’s unex­pect­ed denial of com­pen­sa­tion said: ​“It is not clear that the dis­trict court had juris­dic­tion to with­draw and reen­ter a dis­missal, or enter a sec­ond dis­missal in Mr. Brown’s case. Consequently, the amend­ed motion to dis­miss and the order of dis­missal do not clear­ly indi­cate on their face that Mr. Brown is enti­tled to com­pen­sa­tion.” The Chronicle edi­to­r­i­al board con­trast­ed Brown’s case with that of Hannah Overton, a Corpus Christi woman whose com­pen­sa­tion appli­ca­tion was ​“remark­ably sim­i­lar to Brown’s.” ​“Both [cas­es],” the paper wrote, ​“had cap­i­tal mur­der charges ini­tial­ly dis­missed with­out ​‘actu­al inno­cence’ dec­la­ra­tions. In both cas­es, new dis­trict attor­neys lat­er asked judges to amend the dis­missals to add the words actu­al inno­cence. In both cas­es, judges exam­ined whether they had juris­dic­tion and then grant­ed the requests.” 

The edi­to­r­i­al accused Hegar of a ​“dou­ble stan­dard” and sug­gest­ed that polit­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions may have influ­enced his denial of Brown’s appli­ca­tion. ​“Overton was a white woman wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed of killing a child,” the edi­to­r­i­al said. ​“Brown was a black man wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed of killing a vet­er­an police offi­cer, who was white. Why the dou­ble stan­dard? Did police union offi­cials, who main­tain Brown is guilty, lob­by state offi­cials? Did Hegar, a Republican up for re-elec­tion in November, allow pol­i­tics to come into play?” 

State Senator Rodney Ellis, who spon­sored the Texas law that pro­vides com­pen­sa­tion to peo­ple who were wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed, said that Hegar’s action ​“grave­ly under­mines the pur­pose of the act.” ​“Few can imag­ine the despair and suf­fer­ing that come with wait­ing to die an inno­cent man on death row while life on the out­side pass­es by,” Ellis wrote. ​“While we can nev­er cal­cu­late the true toll that Brown paid, the least we can do as a soci­ety Is pro­vide com­pen­sa­tion to help him rebuild his life as a free man.”