Texas has paid more than $54 million to people wrongfully convicted in Dallas County since 2009 — more money than any other county in the state and more than half of all payouts to exonerees, according to a study by a criminal defense law firm.
As of July, Texas has paid $99,839,320.13 in 95 lump sum payments to people wrongfully convicted since the Tim Cole Act took effect, according to public records analyzed by Rebecca Stumpf of Austin-based Michael and Associates. The law requires the state to pay exonerees $80,000 per year of wrongful imprisonment through the Texas comptroller’s office.
That doesn't include additional monthly annuity payments, which the comptroller calculates by factoring in the exoneree's life expectancy, according to the study. Texas spends almost $6 million a year on those payments.
More than a third of the exonerees — 37 — were wrongfully convicted in Dallas County. Harris County came second with 16 exonerees who received state compensation, followed by six in Bexar County.
Several things may factor into Dallas County's place on the list, said Michael and Associates owner Ben Michael, including a large number of people of color in the county, a history of systemic racism in Dallas County’s criminal justice system leading to wrongful convictions and the renewed efforts to investigate those convictions.
“To say that Dallas has more than another place I don't think tells the whole story,” Michael said. “Dallas, in the last two decades — or 15 years, basically — has put a lot of resources into uncovering these injustices where other counties haven't.”
Of the 95 payments, there were 93 exonerees. One person received two lump sum payments from the state for two separate convictions, and another person received the payment on behalf of her late husband.
According to the study, 15 of the 95 are either ineligible for a payment, deceased or the information wasn't provided.
With Wednesday marking International Wrongful Conviction Day, it's been a period of reckoning for wrongful convictions in Texas. A jury found former Houston police officer Gerald Goines guilty of felony murder last week for lying to initiate a raid on a couple's home, which prosecutors said directly led to the couple's deaths.
Outgoing Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg’s office has reviewed thousands of cases in which Goines and his partner Steven Bryant were involved. More than 30 convictions prosecuted with Goines' involvement since 2019 have been overturned, according to the DA's office.
At least 18 of the Dallas County exonerees were convicted between 1980 and 1987 under District Attorney Henry Wade, according to the study, and 17 convictions involved Black men. Other convictions during his time in office came under scrutiny after his death.
“District Attorney Henry Wade was a particularly egregious offender of getting convictions against innocent people,” Michael said. “He's not the only one, and not by a long shot.”
The growing attention paid to investigating claims of wrongful convictions is largely thanks to former Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins, the county’s first Black DA who also established the county’s Conviction Integrity Unit.
“I think that what the Dallas experience shows is that if you look, you will find cases of injustice and miscarriage of justice," said law professor and attorney Cheryl Wattley.
Wattley’s client Benjamin Spencer officially became Dallas County’s most recent exoneree in August. He spent 34 years in jail for aggravated robbery after he was initially tried and convicted for murder in 1987.
Spencer has filed a claim with the comptroller’s office to begin receiving his compensation, but it’s ultimately up to the state to decide how much he’ll receive, Wattley said.
Texas pays exonerees the third-highest dollar amount in compensation for each year of wrongful incarceration among all states, according to the study. Washington, D.C., tops the list at $200,000 per year.
Although she said the state has done an admirable job in compensating exonerees so far, Wattley also said she doesn’t think Texas should take comfort in these numbers.
“If my life has been wrongfully taken from me and I spend 30 years under a label of a convicted murderer when I have harmed no one, what is the sum of money that makes me whole?” she said.
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