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TEXAS (USA): COURT OVERTURNS MAN'S CONVICTION DUE TO WITHHELD EVIDENCE
November 5, 2014: The Texas court of criminal appeals overturned Alfred Dewayne Brown's conviction due to withheld evidence.
Brown, 32, Black, was convicted in the April 2003 shooting death of Houston police officer Charles R. Clark, 45, during a robbery. A Harris County jury sentenced Brown to death on October 25, 2005. The decision to overturn Brown's conviction hinged on evidence of a phonecall.
The Pittsburgh-based defense firm K&L Gates searched for 6 years for records of a call Brown said he made on the morning of the murder. Prosecutors said he and his alleged fellow conspirators were watching news coverage of the robbery at about 10am on 3 April 2003. Brown said he was at his girlfriend's apartment and had made a phonecall to her employer. A record of the call was eventually found when a homicide detective was cleaning out his garage last year. The find was not only potentially exonerating, but also a violation of a guiding principle of prosecutorial conduct, called a "Brady" violation. The Brady case precedent requires prosecutors to turn over evidence to defense attorneys. Prosecutors said the failure was a mistake, not malicious. Prosecutors are not saying whether they will re-try Brown's case. Harris County district attorney Devon Anderson would "carefully review and evaluate the case to determine the appropriate proceedings", said her spokesperson, Jeff McShan.
Anthony Graves, another Texas death row prisoner whose conviction was overturned in 2010, had tried to help Brown win a new trial, speaking with Brown’s girlfriend about the case and to the Houston Chronicle. Graves, 48, who served a 18 years on death row for a series of murders he did not commit, has successfully pursued an ongoing inquiry into whether there was misconduct by the prosecutors in his case. “If these flaws do not make us conscious that we are sending people off to murder them, shame on us. Shame on us that we don’t want to make our system better,”
Graves told The Times, “What are the safeguards that are now being put in place to stop this from happening? We’ve got a justice system going awry. I’m just hoping that he receives a fair trial.” (Source: The Guardian, Houston Chronicle, 05/11/2014)
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