Texas Supreme Court Orders Compensation for Death-Row Exoneree Alfred Dewayne Brown

The Texas Supreme Court has unan­i­mous­ly ruled that the state’s comp­trol­ler had no author­i­ty to deny death-row exoneree Alfred Dewayne Brown​’s appli­ca­tion for com­pen­sa­tion after a tri­al court had declared him ​“actu­al­ly innocent.” 

The court ruled on December 18, 2020 that Texas law enti­tled Brown to com­pen­sa­tion for the twelve years he was impris­oned after being wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for the mur­ders of a store clerk and a Houston police offi­cer. Brown spent nine years on Texas death row after Harris County Assistant District Attorney Dan Rizzo sup­pressed phone records that demon­strat­ed Brown could not have com­mit­ted the mur­ders and jailed Brown’s girl­friend until she agreed to false­ly tes­ti­fy against him. The deci­sion paves the way for Brown to final­ly receive about $2 mil­lion from the state.

The Texas Supreme Court deci­sion ends a lengthy bat­tle for com­pen­sa­tion in which Brown had twice been refused com­pen­sa­tion by the state comptroller. 

Brown’s com­pen­sa­tion lawyer Neal Manne cel­e­brat­ed the deci­sion. ​“I think he can final­ly close this chap­ter of his life know­ing that the very high­est court in Texas unan­i­mous­ly agreed he was treat­ed wrong­ly and that he’s enti­tled to be com­pen­sat­ed for it,” Manne said. ​“I’m thrilled for the impact on my client, that he gets some mon­ey, com­pen­sa­tion for the state lock­ing him up and try­ing to kill him, but also because the broad nature of the deci­sion makes clear that the comp­trol­ler can nev­er do this again. That’s great for future Dewayne Browns.” Manne described Brown as ​“delight­ed, overwhelmed almost.”

The Compensation Battle

Brown was offi­cial­ly exon­er­at­ed in 2015 after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals over­turned his con­vic­tion in 2014 because pros­e­cu­tors had failed to dis­close the phone records and pros­e­cu­tors declined to try him a sec­ond time. In 2016, Texas State Comptroller Glenn Hegar denied Brown com­pen­sa­tion because the tri­al court had not for­mal­ly declared Brown ​“actu­al­ly inno­cent” when it grant­ed the prosecution’s motion to dis­miss the charges against him.

In 2018, the Harris County District Attorney’s office dis­cov­ered an email show­ing that Rizzo had been aware that the phone records cor­rob­o­rat­ed Brown’s ali­bi but con­tin­ued with the pros­e­cu­tion any­way. D.A. Kim Ogg then appoint­ed a spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor to review the case. After an exten­sive review of the case, the spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor issued a report con­clud­ing that Brown was actu­al­ly inno­cent. Ogg accept­ed the report, announced that Brown ​“was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed through pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct,” and declared him ​“actu­al­ly inno­cent.” The tri­al court judge then also declared Brown ​“actu­al­ly inno­cent,” com­plet­ing all the steps nec­es­sary for Brown to qual­i­fy for com­pen­sa­tion under the state’s wrong­ful con­vic­tion statute. Nonetheless, in 2019, Hegar again denied Brown’s appli­ca­tion for com­pen­sa­tion.

The Texas Supreme Court deci­sion declared that ​“Alfred Dewayne Brown was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death because the pros­e­cut­ing attor­ney with­held and sup­pressed excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence.” It ruled that the comp­trol­ler had a ​“pure­ly min­is­te­r­i­al” role in pro­vid­ing com­pen­sa­tion for a wrong­ful con­vic­tion and no author­i­ty to sec­ond guess a court’s deter­mi­na­tion that an exoneree was ​“actu­al­ly innocent.”

“You have the comp­trol­ler act­ing like an appel­late judge” with no pow­er to do so, said Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman at an October 2020 hear­ing. The deci­sion, which Justice Guzman authored, unam­bigu­ous­ly ​“direct[s] the Comptroller to … com­pen­sate Brown for the time he was wrongfully imprisoned.”