Clarence Brandley
Encyclopedia
Clarence Brandley is an African-American who, in 1981, while a janitor
at a high school
in Conroe
, Texas
, was wrongly convicted
of the rape
and murder
of Cheryl Dee Ferguson, a 16 year-old student
. Brandley was held for nine years on death row
. After lengthy legal proceedings and community outcry, that eventually ended in the Supreme Court of the United States
, Clarence Brandley was freed in 1990. After his release, Brandley was involved in further legal proceedings over child support
payments that had accrued over his time in jail
, and ultimately with an unsuccessful $120 million dollar lawsuit against various agencies of the State of Texas
.
team playing a match against another high school
in Conroe
, Texas. Her body was found in the loft
above the school auditorium
.
In 1987 a judge
agreed with Brandley's attorneys
that he had not received a fair trial
. In fact, State District Judge Perry Picket wrote that, "no case has presented a more shocking scenario of the effects of racial prejudice, perjured testimony, witness intimidation (and) an investigation the outcome of which was predetermined" than Brandley's case.
In 1990, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld Picket's ruling and Brandley was freed from jail—but not freed from his child support
payments.
Brandley had been divorce
d in 1977 and ordered to pay $190/month in child support payments. After being sent to jail
, he did not make those payments, having no source of income
.
After being released from jail, he apparently agreed in 1993 to make the back payments, but subsequently hired a lawyer to contest the payments for the time during which he was in prison and the state of Texas did not attempt to collect the child support.
It renewed collection efforts, however, after Brandley filed an ultimately unsuccessful $120 million lawsuit against various Texas
state agencies over his wrongful imprisonment. Those lawsuits were all rejected on the grounds of sovereign immunity
(a legal doctrine denying citizens the power to sue government
s for wrongful acts).
Dianna Thompson of The American Coalition of Fathers and Children
told the Houston Chronicle
that federal law makes it illegal for states to forgive child support payments regardless of circumstance.
, Brandley and Henry (Icky) Peace, who had found the body. During their joint interrogation — as Peace would recount — Texas Ranger Wesley Styles told them, “One of you is going to have to hang for this” and then, turning to Brandley, added, “Since you’re the nigger
, you’re elected.”
The three claimed to have seen the victim enter a girls’ restroom near the school gym
nasium, and then to have seen Brandley walking toward the restroom with an armload of toilet paper
. They claimed that they told Brandley there was a girl in the restroom, and that he replied that he was taking the toilet paper to the boys’ restroom. They did not see him again until about 45 minutes later, after a search had begun for the missing student. The fourth white custodian, Peace, subsequently added that Brandley was insistent on immediately searching the loft and, when they found the body, calmly checked for a pulse
and then notified the authorities. And all four said that only Brandley had keys to the auditorium
where the body was found.
Montgomery County
grand jury
on August 28, 1980, five days after the crime, Brandley professed innocence. Although he contradicted his white co-workers in several respects, he acknowledged that he had disappeared for perhaps 30 minutes about the time the murder was believed to have occurred. He said he was in the custodian's office smoking and listening to music alone. He also testified that a number of other persons had master keys that would open the auditorium and, in any event, that doors near the stage usually were propped open with a two-by-four.
that had not come from her and could not have come from Brandley. The spot was Type A, but Brandley had Type O blood. One juror found the evidence insufficient to establish guilt, forcing Judge Sam Robertson Jr. to declare a mistrial. The name of the holdout juror — William Shreck — became public knowledge, leading to anonymous harassing telephone calls. One man, whose anonymous communication was monitored by police, threatened Shreck, “We’re going to get you, nigger lover.”
if he refused to go along. However, the prosecution came up with a witness
who had not testified previously. He was Danny Taylor, a junior at the school, who had worked briefly as a custodian but was fired before the crime. Taylor claimed that Brandley once had commented — after a group of white female students walked past them — “If I got one of them alone, ain’t no tellin’ what I might do.”
for Harris County, testified that the victim had died of strangulation and that a belt belonging to Brandley was consistent with the ligature
used in the crime. In closing argument, District attorney
James Keeshan mentioned that Brandley had a second job at a funeral home
and suggested that perhaps he was a necrophiliac and had raped Ferguson after she was dead — an argument that could not have been made in good faith because Keeshan had a report stating that Brandley only did odd jobs at the funeral home and had never been involved in the preparation of bodies for burial. The defense objected to Keeshan’s remark as inflammatory, but Judge John Martin overruled the objection.
had disappeared while in the custody of the prosecution — including a Caucasian
pubic hair
and other hairs recovered from Ferguson’s body that were neither hers nor Brandley’s. Also missing were photographs taken of Brandley on the day of the crime showing that he was not wearing the belt that the prosecution claimed had been the murder weapon. The missing evidence was all the more troubling in light of the pretrial destruction of the spermatozoa.
Much was made of the willful destruction and disappearance of the potentially exculpatory evidence in Brandley’s appellate briefs, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
affirmed the conviction and death sentence without mentioning the issue. “No reasonable hypothesis is presented by the evidence to even suggest that someone other than [Brandley] committed the crime,” said the court. Brandley V. Texas, 691 S.W.2d 699 (1985).
, saw a television broadcast about the Brandley case. Saying she had been unaware of the case until then, she told a neighbor that her former live-in boyfriend — James Dexter Robinson — had told her in 1980 that he had committed such a crime. Medina said she had not believed Robinson at the time, but now it made sense. At the neighbor’s suggestion, she went to see an attorney, who took her to see District Attorney Peter Speers III, who had succeeded Keeshan in the job when Keeshan ascended to the Texas District Court bench. Speers quickly concluded, or so he said, that Medina was unreliable — and, therefore, that he had no obligation to inform Brandley’s lawyers. The private attorney she had consulted thought otherwise, however, and brought her to the attention of the defense.
. The court ordered an evidentiary hearing, which was conducted by District Court Judge Ernest A. Coker.
Before calling Medina to testify at the evidentiary hearing, Brandley’s defense team called Edward Payne, father-in-law of Gary Acreman, one of the school custodians who had testified at both Brandley trials and who was now suspected by the defense of having been a co-perpetrator of the crime with Robinson. Payne testified that Acreman had told him where Ferguson’s clothes had been hidden two days before the authorities found them.
After Medina related details of Robinson’s purported confession, Brandley’s lawyers called John Sessum, the custodian who had testified at the first trial but not the second. Sessum’s testimony was in sharp contrast to what he had said at the first trial. He now said he had seen Acreman follow Cheryl Ferguson up a staircase leading to the auditorium and then heard her scream, “No” and “Don’t.” Later that day, Acreman warned Sessum not to tell anyone what he had seen. But Sessum said he did tell someone — Wesley Styles, the Texas Ranger
who was leading the investigation. That was a mistake. Styles, according to Sessum, responded by threatening him with arrest if he did not tell a story consistent with Acreman’s.
, had coalesced and raised $80,000 to help finance further efforts on Brandley’s behalf. The Rev. Boney was the Chairman of the Houston, Texas-based "Coalition to Free Clarence Lee Brandley" and spearheaded community efforts to have Brandley receive a fair trial. Boney was interviewed on numerous national news outlets and brought significant media and community attention to the case. National
Advocate James McCloskey, of Centurion Ministries in Princeton, New Jersey, also took on the case.
Working with a private investigator
, McCloskey soon obtained a video-taped statement from Acreman stating that Robinson had killed Cheryl Ferguson and that he had seen Robinson place her clothes in a Dumpster
where they were found; that is how Acreman knew where the clothes were before they were found. Although Acreman soon recanted that video statement, two witnesses had come forward attesting that they had heard Acerman say he knew who killed Ferguson, that it was not Brandley, but that he would never tell who did it. Based on these statements, with Brandley’s execution only six days away, Coker granted a stay.
Robinson admitted he had told Brenda Medina in 1980 that he had killed the young woman in Conroe, but claimed he had said that only to frighten Medina. She had been pressuring him because she was pregnant, he said, and he simply wanted her to stop pestering him. Acreman stuck by what he had said at both trials, although he admitted that Robinson had been at Conroe High School the morning of the murder. Incidentally, Robinson and Acreman, unlike Brandley, had Type A blood — consistent with the spot on Ferguson’s blouse.
Texas Ranger Styles, while denying he had done anything improper, acknowledged that even before he had interviewed any witnesses, Brandley was his only suspect. When pressed about why he had not obtained a hair sample from Acerman to compare with the Caucasian pubic hair and other hairs found on the victim, Styles stammered, “Let's say I didn’t do it and it wasn’t done, and why it wasn’t done, I don’t know."
On October 9, 1987, Judge Pickett recommended that the Court of Criminal Appeals grant Brandley a new trial, declaring: “The litany of events graphically described by the witnesses, some of it chilling and shocking, leads me to the conclusion the pervasive shadow of darkness has obscured the light of fundamental decency and human rights.” The Court of Criminal Appeals, after sitting on the case for 14 months, finally accepting Picket’s recommendation with a sharply split en banc decision on December 13, 1989. Ex Parte Brandley, 781 S.W.2d 886 (1989).
on October 1, 1990, Texas v. Brandley, 498 U.S. 817 (1990), dropped all charges. A few months later, Brandley was ordained as a Baptist
minister, and a few months after that he was married. The officials involved in the case were not disciplined, nor did they apologize. Prosecutors in the case still insist they convicted the right man.
Janitor
A janitor or custodian is a professional who takes care of buildings, such as hospitals and schools. Janitors are responsible primarily for cleaning, and often some maintenance and security...
at a high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
in Conroe
Conroe, Texas
Conroe is a suburban city 40 miles north of Houston in the gulf coastal plains/piney woods region of southeast Texas.It is the seat of Montgomery County and falls within the metropolitan area.As of the 2000 U.S...
, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, was wrongly convicted
Miscarriage of justice
A miscarriage of justice primarily is the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. The term can also apply to errors in the other direction—"errors of impunity", and to civil cases. Most criminal justice systems have some means to overturn, or "quash", a wrongful...
of the rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
and murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
of Cheryl Dee Ferguson, a 16 year-old student
Student
A student is a learner, or someone who attends an educational institution. In some nations, the English term is reserved for those who attend university, while a schoolchild under the age of eighteen is called a pupil in English...
. Brandley was held for nine years on death row
Death row
Death row signifies the place, often a section of a prison, that houses individuals awaiting execution. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution , even in places where no special facility or separate unit for condemned inmates exists.After individuals are found...
. After lengthy legal proceedings and community outcry, that eventually ended in the Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
, Clarence Brandley was freed in 1990. After his release, Brandley was involved in further legal proceedings over child support
Child support
In family law and public policy, child support is an ongoing, periodic payment made by a parent for the financial benefit of a child following the end of a marriage or other relationship...
payments that had accrued over his time in jail
Jail
A jail is a short-term detention facility in the United States and Canada.Jail may also refer to:In entertainment:*Jail , a 1966 Malayalam movie*Jail , a 2009 Bollywood movie...
, and ultimately with an unsuccessful $120 million dollar lawsuit against various agencies of the State of Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
.
Chronology of Events
Cheryl Dee Ferguson, a 16-year-old junior at Bellville High School, was murdered on August 23, 1980. Ferguson was part of a school volleyballVolleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
team playing a match against another high school
Conroe High School
Conroe High School is a secondary school in Conroe, Texas and is the flagship campus of Conroe ISD. The school is a part of the Conroe Independent School District and serves the CISD portion of the city of Conroe, Cut and Shoot, and River Plantation....
in Conroe
Conroe, Texas
Conroe is a suburban city 40 miles north of Houston in the gulf coastal plains/piney woods region of southeast Texas.It is the seat of Montgomery County and falls within the metropolitan area.As of the 2000 U.S...
, Texas. Her body was found in the loft
Loft
A loft can be an upper story or attic in a building, directly under the roof. Alternatively, a loft apartment refers to large adaptable open space, often converted for residential use from some other use, often light industrial...
above the school auditorium
Auditorium
An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances at venues such as theatres. For movie theaters, the number of auditoriums is expressed as the number of screens.- Etymology :...
.
In 1987 a judge
Judge
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...
agreed with Brandley's attorneys
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
that he had not received a fair trial
Fair Trial
Fair Trial was a British Thoroughbred racehorse and Champion sire. He was bred and raced by John Arthur Dewar who also bred and raced Tudor Minstrel....
. In fact, State District Judge Perry Picket wrote that, "no case has presented a more shocking scenario of the effects of racial prejudice, perjured testimony, witness intimidation (and) an investigation the outcome of which was predetermined" than Brandley's case.
In 1990, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld Picket's ruling and Brandley was freed from jail—but not freed from his child support
Child support
In family law and public policy, child support is an ongoing, periodic payment made by a parent for the financial benefit of a child following the end of a marriage or other relationship...
payments.
Brandley had been divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
d in 1977 and ordered to pay $190/month in child support payments. After being sent to jail
Jail
A jail is a short-term detention facility in the United States and Canada.Jail may also refer to:In entertainment:*Jail , a 1966 Malayalam movie*Jail , a 2009 Bollywood movie...
, he did not make those payments, having no source of income
Income
Income is the consumption and savings opportunity gained by an entity within a specified time frame, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. However, for households and individuals, "income is the sum of all the wages, salaries, profits, interests payments, rents and other forms of earnings...
.
After being released from jail, he apparently agreed in 1993 to make the back payments, but subsequently hired a lawyer to contest the payments for the time during which he was in prison and the state of Texas did not attempt to collect the child support.
It renewed collection efforts, however, after Brandley filed an ultimately unsuccessful $120 million lawsuit against various Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
state agencies over his wrongful imprisonment. Those lawsuits were all rejected on the grounds of sovereign immunity
Sovereign immunity
Sovereign immunity, or crown immunity, is a legal doctrine by which the sovereign or state cannot commit a legal wrong and is immune from civil suit or criminal prosecution....
(a legal doctrine denying citizens the power to sue government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
s for wrongful acts).
Dianna Thompson of The American Coalition of Fathers and Children
American Coalition of Fathers and Children
The American Coalition of Fathers & Children is an organization that promotes the reform of family law to increase fathers' rights. It is associated with the men's rights movement. ACFC has numerous affiliate organizations throughout the United States, including Parents Without Rights...
told the Houston Chronicle
Houston Chronicle
The Houston Chronicle is the largest daily newspaper in Texas, USA, headquartered in the Houston Chronicle Building in Downtown Houston. , it is the ninth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States...
that federal law makes it illegal for states to forgive child support payments regardless of circumstance.
Details
Suspicion immediately fell on two of the custodiansJanitor
A janitor or custodian is a professional who takes care of buildings, such as hospitals and schools. Janitors are responsible primarily for cleaning, and often some maintenance and security...
, Brandley and Henry (Icky) Peace, who had found the body. During their joint interrogation — as Peace would recount — Texas Ranger Wesley Styles told them, “One of you is going to have to hang for this” and then, turning to Brandley, added, “Since you’re the nigger
Nigger
Nigger is a noun in the English language, most notable for its usage in a pejorative context to refer to black people , and also as an informal slang term, among other contexts. It is a common ethnic slur...
, you’re elected.”
Co-workers’ stories
When Brandley passed polygraph tests the day after the crime, Styles was not dissuaded. The other three custodians — Gary Acreman, Sam Martinez, and John Sessum — provided alibis for one another and made statements casting further suspicion on Brandley, although it appeared later that Styles had coached them for consistency.The three claimed to have seen the victim enter a girls’ restroom near the school gym
Gym
The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, that mean a locality for both physical and intellectual education of young men...
nasium, and then to have seen Brandley walking toward the restroom with an armload of toilet paper
Toilet paper
Toilet paper is a soft paper product used to maintain personal hygiene after human defecation or urination. However, it can also be used for other purposes such as blowing one's nose when one has a cold or absorbing common spills around the house, although paper towels are more used for the latter...
. They claimed that they told Brandley there was a girl in the restroom, and that he replied that he was taking the toilet paper to the boys’ restroom. They did not see him again until about 45 minutes later, after a search had begun for the missing student. The fourth white custodian, Peace, subsequently added that Brandley was insistent on immediately searching the loft and, when they found the body, calmly checked for a pulse
Pulse
In medicine, one's pulse represents the tactile arterial palpation of the heartbeat by trained fingertips. The pulse may be palpated in any place that allows an artery to be compressed against a bone, such as at the neck , at the wrist , behind the knee , on the inside of the elbow , and near the...
and then notified the authorities. And all four said that only Brandley had keys to the auditorium
Auditorium
An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances at venues such as theatres. For movie theaters, the number of auditoriums is expressed as the number of screens.- Etymology :...
where the body was found.
Brandley’s story
Before an all-whiteAll-white jury
An "all-white jury" is an American political term used to describe a jury in a criminal trial, or grand jury investigation, composed only of white people, with the implication that the deliberations may not be fair and unbiased...
Montgomery County
Montgomery County, Texas
Montgomery County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas within the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area. The county was created by an act of the Congress of the Republic of Texas on December 14, 1837. The county was named for the town of Montgomery, Texas. In 2000, its...
grand jury
Grand jury
A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...
on August 28, 1980, five days after the crime, Brandley professed innocence. Although he contradicted his white co-workers in several respects, he acknowledged that he had disappeared for perhaps 30 minutes about the time the murder was believed to have occurred. He said he was in the custodian's office smoking and listening to music alone. He also testified that a number of other persons had master keys that would open the auditorium and, in any event, that doors near the stage usually were propped open with a two-by-four.
A hung jury
Brandley went on trial in December 1980 before an all-white jury. There was no physical evidence linking him to crime. Spermatozoa recovered from the victim’s body had been destroyed — without having been tested to determine whether Brandley could have been its source. Moreover, a fresh blood spot had been found on the victim’s blouseBlouse
A blouse is a loose-fitting upper garment that was formerly worn by workmen, peasants, artists, women and children. It is typically gathered at the waist so that it hangs loosely over the wearer's body. Today, the word most commonly refers to a woman's shirt but can also refer to a man's shirt if...
that had not come from her and could not have come from Brandley. The spot was Type A, but Brandley had Type O blood. One juror found the evidence insufficient to establish guilt, forcing Judge Sam Robertson Jr. to declare a mistrial. The name of the holdout juror — William Shreck — became public knowledge, leading to anonymous harassing telephone calls. One man, whose anonymous communication was monitored by police, threatened Shreck, “We’re going to get you, nigger lover.”
Damning testimony
At Brandley’s second trial in February 1981 before another all-white jury but a different judge, one of the original witnesses — John Sessum — was not called. Later it was discovered that the prosecution had decided not to use Sessum because he no longer was willing to support the other custodians’ versions of events, even though he had been threatened with being charged with perjuryPerjury
Perjury, also known as forswearing, is the willful act of swearing a false oath or affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to a judicial proceeding. That is, the witness falsely promises to tell the truth about matters which affect the outcome of the...
if he refused to go along. However, the prosecution came up with a witness
Witness
A witness is someone who has firsthand knowledge about an event, or in the criminal justice systems usually a crime, through his or her senses and can help certify important considerations about the crime or event. A witness who has seen the event first hand is known as an eyewitness...
who had not testified previously. He was Danny Taylor, a junior at the school, who had worked briefly as a custodian but was fired before the crime. Taylor claimed that Brandley once had commented — after a group of white female students walked past them — “If I got one of them alone, ain’t no tellin’ what I might do.”
Inflammatory argument
Dr. Joseph Jachimczyk, medical examinerMedical examiner
A medical examiner is a medically qualified government officer whose duty is to investigate deaths and injuries that occur under unusual or suspicious circumstances, to perform post-mortem examinations, and in some jurisdictions to initiate inquests....
for Harris County, testified that the victim had died of strangulation and that a belt belonging to Brandley was consistent with the ligature
Ligature (medicine)
In surgery or medical procedure, a ligature consists of a piece of thread tied around an anatomical structure, usually a blood vessel or another hollow structure to shut it off. With a blood vessel the surgeon will clamp the vessel perpendicular to the axis of the artery or vein with a hemostat,...
used in the crime. In closing argument, District attorney
District attorney
In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...
James Keeshan mentioned that Brandley had a second job at a funeral home
Funeral home
A funeral home, funeral parlor or mortuary, is a business that provides burial and funeral services for the deceased and their families. These services may include aprepared wake and funeral, and the provision of a chapel for the funeral....
and suggested that perhaps he was a necrophiliac and had raped Ferguson after she was dead — an argument that could not have been made in good faith because Keeshan had a report stating that Brandley only did odd jobs at the funeral home and had never been involved in the preparation of bodies for burial. The defense objected to Keeshan’s remark as inflammatory, but Judge John Martin overruled the objection.
Loss or destruction of evidence
Eleven months after Brandley was convicted and sentenced to death, his appellate lawyers discovered that exculpatory evidenceExculpatory evidence
Exculpatory evidence is the evidence favorable to the defendant in a criminal trial, which clears or tends to clear the defendant of guilt. It is the opposite of inculpatory evidence, which tends to prove guilt....
had disappeared while in the custody of the prosecution — including a Caucasian
Caucasian race
The term Caucasian race has been used to denote the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia , Central Asia and South Asia...
pubic hair
Pubic hair
Pubic hair is hair in the frontal genital area, the crotch, and sometimes at the top of the inside of the legs; these areas form the pubic region....
and other hairs recovered from Ferguson’s body that were neither hers nor Brandley’s. Also missing were photographs taken of Brandley on the day of the crime showing that he was not wearing the belt that the prosecution claimed had been the murder weapon. The missing evidence was all the more troubling in light of the pretrial destruction of the spermatozoa.
Much was made of the willful destruction and disappearance of the potentially exculpatory evidence in Brandley’s appellate briefs, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is the court of last resort for all criminal matters in the State of Texas, United States. The Court, which is based in the Supreme Court Building in Downtown Austin, is composed of a Presiding Judge and eight judges....
affirmed the conviction and death sentence without mentioning the issue. “No reasonable hypothesis is presented by the evidence to even suggest that someone other than [Brandley] committed the crime,” said the court. Brandley V. Texas, 691 S.W.2d 699 (1985).
A new suspect emerges
Brenda Medina, who lived in the nearby town of Cut and Shoot, TexasCut and Shoot, Texas
Cut and Shoot is a city in eastern Montgomery County, Texas, United States, about 6 miles east of Conroe and 40 miles north of Houston. The population was 1,158 at the 2000 census, at which time it was a town; the community only became a city in August 2006....
, saw a television broadcast about the Brandley case. Saying she had been unaware of the case until then, she told a neighbor that her former live-in boyfriend — James Dexter Robinson — had told her in 1980 that he had committed such a crime. Medina said she had not believed Robinson at the time, but now it made sense. At the neighbor’s suggestion, she went to see an attorney, who took her to see District Attorney Peter Speers III, who had succeeded Keeshan in the job when Keeshan ascended to the Texas District Court bench. Speers quickly concluded, or so he said, that Medina was unreliable — and, therefore, that he had no obligation to inform Brandley’s lawyers. The private attorney she had consulted thought otherwise, however, and brought her to the attention of the defense.
State habeas corpus sought
After obtaining Medina’s sworn statement, Brandley’s lawyers petitioned the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for a writ of habeas corpusHabeas corpus
is a writ, or legal action, through which a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention. The remedy can be sought by the prisoner or by another person coming to his aid. Habeas corpus originated in the English legal system, but it is now available in many nations...
. The court ordered an evidentiary hearing, which was conducted by District Court Judge Ernest A. Coker.
Before calling Medina to testify at the evidentiary hearing, Brandley’s defense team called Edward Payne, father-in-law of Gary Acreman, one of the school custodians who had testified at both Brandley trials and who was now suspected by the defense of having been a co-perpetrator of the crime with Robinson. Payne testified that Acreman had told him where Ferguson’s clothes had been hidden two days before the authorities found them.
After Medina related details of Robinson’s purported confession, Brandley’s lawyers called John Sessum, the custodian who had testified at the first trial but not the second. Sessum’s testimony was in sharp contrast to what he had said at the first trial. He now said he had seen Acreman follow Cheryl Ferguson up a staircase leading to the auditorium and then heard her scream, “No” and “Don’t.” Later that day, Acreman warned Sessum not to tell anyone what he had seen. But Sessum said he did tell someone — Wesley Styles, the Texas Ranger
Texas Ranger Division
The Texas Ranger Division, commonly called the Texas Rangers, is a law enforcement agency with statewide jurisdiction in Texas, and is based in Austin, Texas...
who was leading the investigation. That was a mistake. Styles, according to Sessum, responded by threatening him with arrest if he did not tell a story consistent with Acreman’s.
Community Activism and Result
Despite the accumulation of new evidence, Judge Coker recommended that Brandley be denied a new trial — a recommendation perfunctorily accepted by the Court of Criminal Appeals on December 22, 1986. But by now civil rights activists, including Reverend Jew Don BoneyJew Don Boney
-Professional Background:The Honorable Jew Don Boney, Jr. was a member of the Houston, Texas, City Council from 1995 until 2001, representing the historically African-American District D. In addition, Boney served as Mayor Pro Tem of Houston from 1998 to 2001...
, had coalesced and raised $80,000 to help finance further efforts on Brandley’s behalf. The Rev. Boney was the Chairman of the Houston, Texas-based "Coalition to Free Clarence Lee Brandley" and spearheaded community efforts to have Brandley receive a fair trial. Boney was interviewed on numerous national news outlets and brought significant media and community attention to the case. National
Advocate James McCloskey, of Centurion Ministries in Princeton, New Jersey, also took on the case.
Working with a private investigator
Private investigator
A private investigator , private detective or inquiry agent, is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private detectives/investigators often work for attorneys in civil cases. Many work for insurance companies to investigate suspicious claims...
, McCloskey soon obtained a video-taped statement from Acreman stating that Robinson had killed Cheryl Ferguson and that he had seen Robinson place her clothes in a Dumpster
Dumpster
A dumpster is a large steel waste receptacle designed to be emptied into garbage trucks. The word is a genericized trademark of Dumpster, a American brand name for a type of mobile garbage bin...
where they were found; that is how Acreman knew where the clothes were before they were found. Although Acreman soon recanted that video statement, two witnesses had come forward attesting that they had heard Acerman say he knew who killed Ferguson, that it was not Brandley, but that he would never tell who did it. Based on these statements, with Brandley’s execution only six days away, Coker granted a stay.
A fair hearing
After further investigation, Brandley’s lawyers petitioned for another evidentiary hearing, which the Court of Criminal Appeals granted on June 30, 1987. The new hearing was conducted by Special State District Judge Perry Pickett. Robinson, Acerman, and Styles testified for the prosecution, each seeming to help rather than hurt Brandley’s case.Robinson admitted he had told Brenda Medina in 1980 that he had killed the young woman in Conroe, but claimed he had said that only to frighten Medina. She had been pressuring him because she was pregnant, he said, and he simply wanted her to stop pestering him. Acreman stuck by what he had said at both trials, although he admitted that Robinson had been at Conroe High School the morning of the murder. Incidentally, Robinson and Acreman, unlike Brandley, had Type A blood — consistent with the spot on Ferguson’s blouse.
Texas Ranger Styles, while denying he had done anything improper, acknowledged that even before he had interviewed any witnesses, Brandley was his only suspect. When pressed about why he had not obtained a hair sample from Acerman to compare with the Caucasian pubic hair and other hairs found on the victim, Styles stammered, “Let's say I didn’t do it and it wasn’t done, and why it wasn’t done, I don’t know."
On October 9, 1987, Judge Pickett recommended that the Court of Criminal Appeals grant Brandley a new trial, declaring: “The litany of events graphically described by the witnesses, some of it chilling and shocking, leads me to the conclusion the pervasive shadow of darkness has obscured the light of fundamental decency and human rights.” The Court of Criminal Appeals, after sitting on the case for 14 months, finally accepting Picket’s recommendation with a sharply split en banc decision on December 13, 1989. Ex Parte Brandley, 781 S.W.2d 886 (1989).
No apologies
The prosecution appealed, delaying disposition of the case another 10 months. But within hours of the U.S. Supreme Court’s denial of certiorariCertiorari
Certiorari is a type of writ seeking judicial review, recognized in U.S., Roman, English, Philippine, and other law. Certiorari is the present passive infinitive of the Latin certiorare...
on October 1, 1990, Texas v. Brandley, 498 U.S. 817 (1990), dropped all charges. A few months later, Brandley was ordained as a Baptist
Baptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
minister, and a few months after that he was married. The officials involved in the case were not disciplined, nor did they apologize. Prosecutors in the case still insist they convicted the right man.