Man who served 15 years for killing cop exonerated after witnesses & evidence tampering revealed
According to ABC-13, Alfred Brown, who was convicted of the murder of a woman and a Houston Police Department officer in 2005, has been exonerated after special prosecutor John Raley gave a report explaining how the grand jury that tried Brown’s case had been compromised, with one woman even being threatened with sexual assault in prison if she did not tell jurors what prosecutors wanted them to hear.
Another woman was threatened and told she would have her children taken away and she would be jailed for a few weeks unless she told a story that Assistant District Attorney at the time Dan Rizzo wanted to hear. Rizzo also stands accused of not giving key evidence to the court during Brown’s murder trial. The concealment of this evidence led to a 2005 conviction for Brown, who was released from prison when the evidence was discovered.
“There is no evidence sufficient for a reasonable juror to find that he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the legal definition of innocence,” Raley said. “Alfred Dewayne Brown is innocent as a matter of law… The evidence shows that he was not present at the crime scene and therefore, is actually innocent of the charges against him.”
Brown continually maintained that he was not at the scene the entire time, but was not believed during his trial. His attorney, Neal Manne, told ABC-13, ” He knew he was actually innocent, we knew he was actually innocent, but for the district attorney of the county to finally acknowledged that, is just extraordinary for him.”
The Houston Police Officers Union was less than pleased with this development. Former president Ray Hunt told ABC-13, “This is ridiculous. Anybody with common sense, any detective with one year of experience can tell that there’s evidence out there to convict this person.” Hunt then launched into a tirade directed at Kim Ogg, the newest District Attorney for Harris County: “You are a disgrace to Harris County in this decision that you made. You are a disgrace to (Jones’) family and you are a disgrace to (Clark’s) family and his wife. And I don’t care who quotes me in saying that.”
“I want to tell the families of the victims that I understand their anger and their frustration, I can understand it directed at us,” Ogg told the slain officer’s family in a press conference. “But it does no justice to your loved ones to have a wrongfully convicted person tainted by what a prosecutor did in this case.”