Alfred Dewayne Brown’s lawyers said a decision released Friday by the Supreme Court of Texas will allow future innocent Texans who have been wrongfully convicted of crimes to have “a much easier time getting compensated from the state.”
“We got justice for one man but in the process we’ve set a precedent that’s going to help bring justice to a lot of women and men in the future who might otherwise not be able to get it,” said Susman Godfrey partner Neal Manne, one of Brown’s lawyers.
Manne is part of a team of lawyers at Susman Godfrey and Alexander Dubose Jefferson who secured a landmark pro bono victory for Brown, who was wrongfully convicted in 2005 for capital murder. Brown became a free man in 2015 after serving more than 12 years in prison. For the last five years, Brown’s legal team has been seeking compensation for Brown from the state’s comptroller’s office under the Tim Cole Act.
After a lengthy, several years-long battle, Friday’s 18-page opinion written by Justice Eva Guzman paves the way for that to now happen.
Texas’ highest civil court ruled that the Tim Cole Act imposes a “purely ministerial duty” on the comptroller when determining eligibility for wrongful imprisonment compensation. In this situation, SCOTX ruled, the comptroller’s office exceeded its authority because it factored in its doubts of a trial court’s jurisdictional authority to declare Brown innocent when it decided to deny compensation.
“The district court’s amended dismissal order appears regular on its face and contains all the judicial determinations required for compensation under the act,” Justice Guzman wrote. “The comptroller’s purely ministerial duty to determine eligibility does not include looking behind the verified documents to review the district court’s factual and legal conclusions de novo.”
Manne said the value of Brown’s compensation from the comptroller will total to nearly $2 million.
In addition to serving justice to any innocent Texan who has been wrongfully convicted, Manne said he hopes Friday’s opinion encourages other lawyers to take pro bono cases. He said his side has spent “thousands” of hours on the case over the last five years.
“I think it’s really important for your readers, most of whom are lawyers, to see that they can accomplish a lot of good in the world if they take on causes and work for justice on behalf of people who are powerless who can never afford to have an attorney,” Manne told The Texas Lawbook.
The Texas Attorney General’s office, which represented Texas Comptroller Glenn Hagar, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In addition to Manne, Susman Godfrey partners Shawn Raymond and Joe Grinstein were also on Brown’s legal team. ADJT lawyers representing Brown include name partner and former SCOTX Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson and partner Rachel Ekery. In October, Jefferson spearheaded oral argument before the Supreme Court on behalf of Brown. In a press release, Brown also recognized his longtime lawyer and friend, Brian Stolarz of Fox Rothschild, whose help was essential to obtaining his freedom.
The state’s lead lawyer is Assistant Solicitor General Philip Lionberger.
The path that led to Friday’s Texas Supreme Court ruling is long and convoluted.
Brown was detained in 2003 one day after the murder of a Houston Police officer responding to a robbery in southeast Houston, which also resulted in the death of a store clerk. A Harris County jury convicted Brown of capital murder in 2005 despite the prosecutor obtaining phone records in 2003 that corroborated Brown’s alibi. A Harris County detective discovered those phone records in his garage in 2013, which led to Brown’s 2015 release after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals vacated Brown’s conviction in 2014. Then, in 2019, an investigation conducted by a special prosecutor led Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg to legally declare Brown innocent.
Manne said his firm got involved in Brown’s case through his involvement with the Texas Defender Service, a nonprofit that provides legal assistance in death penalty cases. At the time of Brown’s release, Manne was serving as the chair of TDS’ board of directors.
Brown’s team applied for wrongful incarceration compensation under the Tim Cole Act, a law passed by the Texas Legislature a decade ago in honor of Timothy Brian Cole, an African American military veteran who died behind bars at age 39 while serving time for a rape he did not commit. The act allows for wrongfully convicted people to seek compensation for the period they were imprisoned.
The comptroller denied Brown’s application for compensation multiple times.
“When we took the case in 2015, we thought we’d win the compensation pretty quickly,” Manne said. “It seemed pretty clear to us that he was actually innocent and qualified for compensation under the statute. … Because the comptroller was the object of political interference and corrupting influence by people who were opposed to him [Brown] being compensated, the comptroller just ignored the law and denied compensation again, which led to a year and a half of litigation in the Supreme Court.”
Manne called the police officer’s death a “horrible” event for “his family, the department and the whole community.” But because one of the victims was a police officer, it caused a police union that got involved in the litigation to “never view the case objectively” and to “rush to judgment.”
Although Brown’s team had those obstacles working against them, they did have something remarkable working in their favor: a compendium of amicus briefs across all sides of the political spectrum advocating for Brown.
Manne said their side had amicus briefs from Gov. Rick Perry, faith leaders (including a Catholic bishop), and the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank founded by the Charles Koch Foundation.
“We wanted people to see that this wasn’t some case supported by a bunch of liberal do-gooders; this was a fight for justice that people across the political spectrum were supporting,” Manne said.
In Friday’s opinion, Justice Guzman wrote that Brown’s application “checked all the statutory boxes” and that the comptroller “exceeded his authority” in denying it.
She ordered the comptroller to withdraw his denial and compensate Brown for his time wrongfully imprisoned.
“Having met the high actual-innocence bar as determined by the district attorney and trial judge, the statute leaves to the Comptroller the limited and nondiscretionary task of ensuring the verified application documents facially comport with the statute,” Justice Guzman wrote. “By considering matters beyond the verified documents to make a de novo jurisdictional determination, the Comptroller exceeded his authority.
“We are confident the comptroller will comply, and our writ will issue only if he does not,” Guzman concluded.