The Texas Supreme Court has awarded compensation to a former Texas Death Row inmate.
It took years, but a former death row inmate will finally be compensated for 12 years in prison, nearly ten of them awaiting execution.
Alfred Dewayne Brown was released five and a half years ago after evidence was found proving he did not kill a Houston police officer in 2003. He was declared actually innocent. Two million dollars in compensation should have been released through the state comptroller's office.
Brown's attorney Neal Manne says Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton intervened to deny him two million dollars in compensation.
As to what happened to release the funds, Manne says "finally some judges were involved who are charged with following the rule of law rather than acting based on craven politics."
Brown is entitled to a lump sum payment of a little less than one million dollars and an annuity valued at about the same amount of money.
Manne says it was "unjust Brown was charged with a crime he did not commit, it was unjust that prosecutors violated the constitution and prosecuted him in ways that were illegal, it was unjust that the state of Texas imprisoned him for 12 years and tried to kill him." He says it shouldn't have taken this long. "The controller had our request years ago, but it was a politically corrupt process. We couldn't get justice for Mr, Brown until we finally got to the Supreme Court."
He says no amount of money is worth what Brown endured. "No one can compensate a human being who is locked in a six foot by eight foot cell waiting to be put to death. Money doesn't compensate that."
