Ben Spencer — convicted more than 35 years ago of murder — walked out of a Dallas County courtroom Thursday morning exonerated of the crime.
A total of 46 defendants convicted in Dallas County courts have been exonerated since 2001. Spencer's exoneration came after his attorneys presented new evidence and the Dallas County District Attorney's Office reinvestigated the case.
"I'm excited this day has finally come," Spencer told supporters Thursday. "One day for a wrongful conviction or arrest is too long. And 37 years of a wrongful conviction is a lifetime."
Spencer said there was no way he could regain those years, "but I'm happy to be moving forward."
Spencer never stopped saying he was innocent.
He'd been sentenced to 35 years in prison for killing Jeffrey Young, who was found lying unconscious with severe head injuries in the 3900 block of Puget Street in Dallas. He later died at Parkland Memorial Hospital. His gray BMW was found in an alley.
Gladys Oliver lived near where Young was found. According to a statement from the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office, she initially said she hadn’t seen anything. But after awards for information were announced, “Oliver claimed to have seen Spencer and his co-defendant, Nathan Robert Mitchell, get out of Young’s car,” according to the statement.
Another witness testified he saw Spencer get out of Young’s car, "though he actually didn’t see that."
Spencer got a new trial after “it was found that a witness provided false testimony regarding whether she expected to receive reward money for her role in the case,” according to the statement. But Spencer was convicted of aggravated robbery and sentenced to life in prison in the second trial.
A writ of habeas corpus filed on Spencer's behalf in 2004 asserted his innocence. A local judge recommended to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest criminal court, that Spencer be found innocent — over the objection of the DA's office at that time.
But the Court of Criminal Appeals denied the petition in 2011.
After Spencer’s attorneys presented new evidence, the DA’s Conviction Integrity Unit began an investigation and concluded that Mr. Spencer was innocent. That investigation also found that prosecutors had previously withheld evidence.
Dallas County Criminal District Attorney John Creuzot on Thursday pointed to the "grave injustice" that Spencer and his family endured.
"We're humbled and honored to play a part in correcting this wrong and it brings us relief to know that at last we have set things right," Creuzot said.
Spencer said "it means the world to me to know that there are still loving and kind people who are interested in seeing justice done."
Creuzot's office announced his conviction should be vacated in March 2021 "on the basis of several constitutional violations including including the false testimony of the original prosecution’s star witness, false testimony from a jailhouse informant, and the suppression of Brady evidence by the State. Spencer was released on bond after serving 34 years behind bars."
A "Brady violation" is a legal rule based on a 1963 Supreme Court ruling in Brady v. Maryland.
The justices essentially ruled that it was a violation of a defendant's constitutional right to due process if prosecutors withheld evidence material to their case.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned Spencer's second conviction in May and the decision became final in June.
After Spencer and Mitchell were arrested, the district attorney's office statement noted that a jailhouse informant told police Spencer had confessed to the "abduction, robbery and murder" of Young.
Historically, prisoners have been offered reduced sentences or other perks in return for testifying against another defendant. Jailhouse confessions are notoriously unreliable yet have contributed to many convictions.
The Innocence Project describes jailhouse informant testimony as "one of the leading contributing factors of wrongful convictions nationally."
The jailhouse informant who implicated Spencer in Young's death later "admitted that he falsely testified at trial that Spencer had confessed to the crime while they were incarcerated in Dallas county," the DA's office recounted.
Creuzot said in the statement released by his office that there were also latent print cards taken from the scene that had been lost or misplaced.
"At the time of the original investigation, Spencer was excluded as a match," he said. "If the cards are found, we will request the police department to run them against the database, which could provide leads."
Over the years, Spencer has had considerable support from local attorneys — including Cheryl Wattley, Professor of Law and Director of the Joyce Ann Brown Innocence Clinic at UNT Dallas College of Law and Gary Udashen from Udashen/Anton in Dallas — as well as Centurion Ministries, a nonprofit organization that works to free wrongfully convicted prisoners.
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