Supreme Court of Texas Finds Exoneree Alfred Dewayne Brown is Entitled to Compensation Under the Tim Cole Act

In April 2003, three men robbed a check-cashing store in Houston, TX, where they fatally shot the store clerk and the police officer who responded to the scene. The following day, police arrested three men on capital murder charges: 21-year-old Alfred Dewayne Brown, 21-year-old Dashan Glaspie and 23-year-old Elijah Joubert.

When Brown was arrested, he told police he was asleep on his girlfriend’s couch at the time of the crime. Brown’s girlfriend, Ericka Dockery, corroborated his alibi at the grand jury proceedings. She also corroborated Brown’s statement that he’d called Dockery from her home phone at the same time police believed he was with Joubert and Glaspie.

Later,

In 2013, a homicide detective found records from the case in his garage and notified Brown’s attorneys. In the records was a telephone log showing that a call was made from Dockery’s home telephone to her workplace at 10:08 a.m. — just as Brown had said from the beginning.

Subsequently, “[i]n November 2014, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals vacated Brown’s conviction and ordered a new trial because the “State withheld evidence that was both favorable and material to [Brown]’s case in violation of Brady [v. Maryland].” The State then declined to retry Brown, and he was set free.

Next, Brown filed for compensation for his wrongful conviction under the Tim Cole Act (named for posthumous exoneree Tim Cole), but “[t]he Comptroller denied Brown’s first application for wrongful-incarceration compensation under the Tim Cole Act because habeas relief was not based on his actual innocence.”

But then,

In the meantime, the Harris County District Attorney appointed a special prosecutor to “analyze [1] whether Brown should be re-indicted, [2] whether he should be declared actually innocent, or [3] whether the status quo of dismissed charges with no formal declaration of innocence should continue.” The special prosecutor’s ten-month investigation culminated in a detailed 179-page report in which he concluded Brown “could not physically have been at the crime scene.” The report further added that Brown “[met] the legal definition of ‘actual innocence,’ ” because “[b]y clear and convincing evidence, no reasonable juror would fail to have a reasonable doubt about whether Brown is guilty of murder.”

Agreeing this report, “the District Attorney filed an amended motion to dismiss in March 2019, stating (1) no credible evidence inculpates Brown in the capital murder crime for which he was convicted and sentenced to death, and (2) he ‘is actually innocent’ of that crime.” The district court granted this motion, and “[t]he court’s formal declaration of actual innocence became final when no appeal was taken.”

And yet, the Comptroller still found that Brown was not entitled to compensation under the Tim Cole Act. Why?

According to the Comptroller,

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 under [the Act].

On Friday, the Supreme Court of Texas disagreed, concluding that

Under the statute as enacted, the Comptroller can determine only whether the required dismissal order has been issued, not whether it was correctly issued as a legal or factual matter. Whether this division of authority adequately protects the public fisc while serving the ends of justice requires a weighing of interests that is committed to the Legislature.62 Our only objective is to ascertain legislative intent as expressed in the statutory language.63 Affording the Act the meaning its language plainly dictates, the Comptroller exceeded his ministerial duty by looking beyond the verified documents to reverse the district court’s determination that it had jurisdiction to clear Brown’s name by amending the original dismissal order to declare him actually innocent.

This is huge. First, it means that Brown will finally receive compensation under the Tim Cole Act. Second, it means that the Comptroller is not a second level of review for wrongful conviction compensation claims in Texas. If the courts find that someone is innocent, they get compensation, full stop.

-CM