Man officially declared innocent after being wrongly convicted of HPD officer's murder

[FONT=&quot]HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Alfred Brown, a man convicted in a 15-year-old murder case of a Houston police officer and a mother of two, has been officially declared innocent, the Harris County District Attorney's Office announced Friday. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Brown was released from prison in 2015 after 10 years on death row. But at the time, he was not declared innocent. [/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Friday morning, special prosecutor John Raley gave a report on Brown's case explaining what led to Brown's initial conviction and why he is innocent. [/FONT]

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In this case, the prosecutor had evidence that Brown was not even at the scene of the police officer's murder, but withheld it in order to get a conviction. In addition, detectives coerced false testimony from a witness by telling her that they would make sure she got raped in prison if she didn't falsely testify against Brown, using words they told her to say.

There is a reason I am against the death penalty. If the death penalty were infallible, I would volunteer to "throw the switch" myself. But it isn't. This case is just another example why. The good news here is that, by making a declaration of innocence, the state of Texas will now be giving the wrongly convicted man compensation of more than 4 million dollars for the years he spent on death row for a crime he never committed.

Alfred Brown officially declared innocent in HPD officer'''s murder | abc13.com

danarhea said:

In this case, the prosecutor had evidence that Brown was not even at the scene of the police officer's murder, but withheld it in order to get a conviction. In addition, detectives coerced false testimony from a witness by telling her that they would make sure she got raped in prison if she didn't falsely testify against Brown, using words they told her to say.

There is a reason I am against the death penalty. If the death penalty were infallible, I would volunteer to "throw the switch" myself. But it isn't. This case is just another example why. The good news here is that, by making a declaration of innocence, the state of Texas will now be giving the wrongly convicted man compensation of more than 4 million dollars for the years he spent on death row for a crime he never committed.

Alfred Brown officially declared innocent in HPD officer'''s murder | abc13.com

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There better be some police and prosecutors being arrested and charged with crimes over this

cops have been doing this since time began

there is a reason so many dislike and dont trust police

Lord Tammerlain said:

There better be some police and prosecutors being arrested and charged with crimes over this

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I would go further than that. I would charge the prosecutor and the detectives involved in this with attempted murder.

danarhea said:

In this case, the prosecutor had evidence that Brown was not even at the scene of the police officer's murder, but withheld it in order to get a conviction. In addition, detectives coerced false testimony from a witness by telling her that they would make sure she got raped in prison if she didn't falsely testify against Brown, using words they told her to say.

There is a reason I am against the death penalty. If the death penalty were infallible, I would volunteer to "throw the switch" myself. But it isn't. This case is just another example why. The good news here is that, by making a declaration of innocence, the state of Texas will now be giving the wrongly convicted man compensation of more than 4 million dollars for the years he spent on death row for a crime he never committed.

Alfred Brown officially declared innocent in HPD officer'''s murder | abc13.com

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The prosecutor and detectives should get life in prison then. We have to trust our guardians.

And may that prosecutor burn in hell, right next to the cop.

danarhea said:

I would go further than that. I would charge the prosecutor and the detectives involved in this with attempted murder.

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Thats a great idea because thats exactly what it is. Plus mental torture.

I have an inherent distrust of authority figures — especially police. So many — not all — are power hungry and aggressive. And with the militarization of our police forces, they are getting worse.

Lord Tammerlain said:

There better be some police and prosecutors being arrested and charged with crimes over this

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I doubt it due to sovereign immunity. I do hope that the defendant does sue the city and get a nice cash reward out of it.

danarhea said:

In this case, the prosecutor had evidence that Brown was not even at the scene of the police officer's murder, but withheld it in order to get a conviction. In addition, detectives coerced false testimony from a witness by telling her that they would make sure she got raped in prison if she didn't falsely testify against Brown, using words they told her to say.

There is a reason I am against the death penalty. If the death penalty were infallible, I would volunteer to "throw the switch" myself. But it isn't. This case is just another example why. The good news here is that, by making a declaration of innocence, the state of Texas will now be giving the wrongly convicted man compensation of more than 4 million dollars for the years he spent on death row for a crime he never committed.

Alfred Brown officially declared innocent in HPD officer'''s murder | abc13.com

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This is not an argument against the death penalty, danarhea. It is an argument against the purposeful perpetuation of miscarriages of justice within our criminal justice system, and the perverse incentives that our prosecutorial system has (such as a district attorney's employment being dependent on their conviction rate).

PoS said:

I doubt it due to sovereign immunity.

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I am not sure that it applies. The acts of the cops and prosecutor were that of individuals and not errors.

When convicting people is your career and convicting people = more money directly in your pocket then we need like 500 safeguards and we need to watch who is friends with who when they drag people into court as part of their job.

Felis Leo said:

This is not an argument against the death penalty, danarhea. It is an argument against the purposeful perpetuation of miscarriages of justice within our criminal justice system, and the perverse incentives that our prosecutorial system has (such as a district attorney's employment being dependent on their conviction rate).

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Of course it is an argument against the death penalty, and the most legitimate argument there is against it. It is frequently given capriciously, and based on either fake evidence or on the withholding of exonerating evidence. That is a damn good reason not to have it. My argument might be against prosecutorial misconduct, as you stated, but prosecuotorial misconduct itself is a huge argument against the death penalty all by itself.

PoS said:

I doubt it due to sovereign immunity. I do hope that the defendant does sue the city and get a nice cash reward out of it.

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Trying to sue municipalities over police or other similar official misconduct is a nightmare (on purpose). I forget all the specifics, but basically you have to show that the department as a whole was so ****ed up that something like what happened to you was X degree of high likelihood to happen. There are all sorts of other hoops to jump through.

danarhea said:

I would go further than that. I would charge the prosecutor and the detectives involved in this with attempted murder.

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If the prosecutor sought the death penalty for a person he knew to be innocent of the crime, what else could you call it but attempted murder?

And we all know how much Texas likes to execute people. They do it as often as possible. In fact, Texas wants to put in an express lane to the death chamber. They just can't get enough of those state-sponsored executions.

And think of how much money Texas would have saved if they had been able to execute this poor schmuck faster.

danarhea said:

Of course it is an argument against the death penalty, and the most legitimate argument there is against it. It is frequently given capriciously, and based on either fake evidence or on the withholding of exonerating evidence. That is a damn good reason not to have it. My argument might be against prosecutorial misconduct, as you stated, but prosecuotorial misconduct itself is a huge argument against the death penalty all by itself.

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Let me be clear, danarhea: if you have little to no faith in the criminal justice system itself, shouldn't you be equally against all criminal penalties? Let us take the very real example of the man imprisoned for twenty years for, say, a rape he did not commit and was convicted on the flimsiest of grounds such as an unguarded statement to police investigators that gave a pretext for his prosecution. Hey may not have been given the death penalty, but he still had his name indelibly stained and the best years of his life were still stolen away from him.

Stealers Wheel said:

If the prosecutor sought the death penalty for a person he knew to be innocent of the crime, what else could you call it but attempted murder?

And we all know how much Texas likes to execute people. They do it as often as possible. In fact, Texas wants to put in an express lane to the death chamber. They just can't get enough of those state-sponsored executions.

And think of how much money Texas would have saved if they had been able to execute this poor schmuck faster.

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Actually, the number of death penalty verdicts in Texas has substantially decreased over the last several years.

Felis Leo said:

This is not an argument against the death penalty, danarhea. It is an argument against the purposeful perpetuation of miscarriages of justice within our criminal justice system, and the perverse incentives that our prosecutorial system has (such as a district attorney's employment being dependent on their conviction rate).

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What?

He said he opposes the death penalty because it is fallible. Purposeful misconduct is only one of the reasons it is fallible. It's irrational to try to tell him he's wrong by separate his stated reason for opposing the death penalty from the question of whether he opposes the death penalty.
.

Felis Leo said:

Let me be clear, danarhea: if you have little to no faith in the criminal justice system itself, shouldn't you be equally against all criminal penalties? Let us take the very real example of the man imprisoned for twenty years for, say, a rape he did not commit and was convicted on the flimsiest of grounds such as an unguarded statement to police investigators that gave a pretext for his prosecution. Hey may not have been given the death penalty, but he still had his name indelibly stained and the best years of his life were still stolen away from him.

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Again, an incoherent objection. There is no logical reason why opposing the ultimate penalty for fallibility requires one to oppose all penalties.

Mr Person said:

What?

He said he opposes the death penalty because it is fallible. Purposeful misconduct is only one of the reasons it is fallible. It's irrational to try to tell him he's wrong by separate his stated reason for opposing the death penalty from the question of whether he opposes the death penalty.
.

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As I pointed out in my second post: The problem is the system itself. If one does not have any faith in the integrity of our criminal justice system or the honesty of prosecutors, how can any criminal penalty be justified or acceptable?

Felis Leo said:

If one does not have any faith in the integrity of our criminal justice system or the honesty of prosecutors

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How or why should anyone have faith when it is rife with egotistical ambition, financial temptation, mispairing and work overload, just to name a few of the problems.

prometeus said:

How or why should anyone have faith when it is rife with egotistical ambition, financial temptation, mispairing and work overload, just to name a few of the problems.

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I do not know how such circumstances would justify trust or faith in the criminal justice system. But it seems like a very good argument for not prosecuting or punishing anyone, whether by fines, prison sentences or the death penalty.

Felis Leo said:

Let me be clear, danarhea: if you have little to no faith in the criminal justice system itself, shouldn't you be equally against all criminal penalties? Let us take the very real example of the man imprisoned for twenty years for, say, a rape he did not commit and was convicted on the flimsiest of grounds such as an unguarded statement to police investigators that gave a pretext for his prosecution. Hey may not have been given the death penalty, but he still had his name indelibly stained and the best years of his life were still stolen away from him.

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I have plenty of faith in the justice system, and also police officers (a few of them are good friends). However, I carry a breathalyzer with me whereever I go. I also have a 3 camera video system in my car that uploads in real time to my server. Whenever I leave a gig late at night, my video system comes on. The first thing I do is to record myself blowing a 0.0 on my brethalyzer, then I drive home with the system running. Am I afraid of crooked cops? Not especially. 99.9% of them are honest. I worry about that 0.1%, and I have good reason to. I had a DWI conviction in 2009 by a crooked cop, which was reversed by the courts after the FBI busted the police department in Tomball, Texas. The police department ended up under Federal supervision for about 5 years, and the cop was criminally investigated. Don't know the outcome of that investigation because the FBI did not disclose that kind of information. I know that cop was fired, but will probably never know any other penalties which may or may not have been imposed. I assume the cop was not criminally charged because that would have made the news. To me, this was an example of the 0.1% of bad cops. Likewise, I have faith in 99.9% of prosecutions, but the 0.1% of faulty or malicious prosecutions is why the death penalty should be ended.

Now feel free to put some more words in my mouth. You have no idea of who I am or what I think if all you can do is to connect dots which do not exist. I say this respectfully, as I can tell you are not one of the nasty guys on this forum.

Felis Leo said:

I do not know how such circumstances would justify trust or faith in the criminal justice system. But it seems like a very good argument for not prosecuting or punishing anyone, whether by fines, prison sentences or the death penalty.

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We also must take into account that the absence of a system is not more desirable or better. The right path is working to improve it.

danarhea said:

I had a DWI conviction in 2009 by a crooked cop, which was reversed by the courts after the FBI busted the police department in Tomball, Texas. The police department ended up under Federal supervision for about 5 years, and the cop was criminally investigated. Don't know the outcome of that investigation because the FBI did not disclose that kind of information. I know that cop was fired, but will probably never know any other penalties which may or may not have been imposed. To me, this was an example of the 0.1% of bad cops. Likewise, I have faith in 99.9% of prosecutions, but the 0.1% of faulty or malicious prosecutions is why the death penalty should be ended.

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Whoa. Did you sue the city, dan? I would have.

Lord Tammerlain said:

There better be some police and prosecutors being arrested and charged with crimes over this

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There won't be, there rarely are.