AUSTIN, Texas (Legal Newsline) - A man who was freed after 12 years in prison and received compensation under a Texas law can’t sue officials in federal court for violating his rights, the Texas Supreme Court ruled in an advisory opinion to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Alfred Dewayne Brown was convicted of murdering a Houston police officer and sentenced to death over his complaints he was at his girlfriend’s house at the time of the killing and had phone records to prove it. He was freed from prison in 2015 because prosecutors had withheld exculpatory evidence at trial and the charges against him were ultimately dismissed for lack of evidence.
Brown then applied for compensation under the Tim Cole Act, a law originally passed through constitutional amendment in 1956 that allows wrongfully convicted people to receive compensation. The law was amended several times over the years including in 2009, when the Texas legislature made it the sole source of compensation for wrongful convictions. Petitioners must request payment from the state Comptroller and cannot sue government officials over the same set of facts.
Brown applied for compensation but the Comptroller rejected his claim, saying he hadn’t been wrongfully convicted. He then sued Houston, Harris County and law enforcement officials in federal court for violating his constitutional rights. As part of the legal discovery process in that case, he found an email showing a prosecutor failed to disclose evidence that would have helped his case.
Harris County then appointed a special prosecutor who concluded Brown couldn’t have committed the crime. He applied for compensation again and the Comptroller refused again. The Texas Supreme Court reversed that decision, ruling that the Comptroller lacked the authority to refute a judicial finding of innocence.
The defendants then moved to dismiss the federal claims against them, citing the Tim Cole Act, which says people who receive compensation “may not bring any action involving the same subject matter” in court. A federal judge agreed and dismissed his case, but he appealed. Seeing no Texas cases directly addressing this question, the Fifth Circuit asked the Texas Supreme Court to decide.
In a lengthy Feb. 3 opinion hinging upon the meaning of “bring,” the state high court said Brown was out of luck. In some contexts the word “bring” means to initiate a lawsuit, the court said, but in many others it refers to litigation as long as it is outstanding. “`Bringing’ an action in this context entails maintaining it,” the court concluded.
As an advisory opinion, the Texas Supreme Court said it wasn’t deciding whether Brown can continue to sue Houston officials under federal law.