We just received some pictures of Alfred Dewayne Brown back at home. He is happy to be back together with his family and able to smell the fresh air every day. In addition to learning how touch screen cell phones work, he enjoys feeding the horses everyday, one of the activities he longed to do while locked up in solitary confinement on Texas death row for ten years.

We are less than $1200 short of our goal of raising $5000 for Dewayne, who walked free June 8, 2015 for the first time after more than ten years in solitary confinement on Texas death row for a crime he did not commit.

We need to ask you to help us reach the goal by sending the link to the fundraising page to your friends with a personal request for them to help Dewayne.

Ask your friends how they would deal with freedom after ten years on death row. They would certainly worry about having enough for food, clothes and other basic necessities. Please send the link to 3 or 4 friends and mostly likely one of them will pitch in to help.

If you have contacts at any organizations you could also ask them to send out the link in their newsletter or email their members. You could also post the link to your Facebook and Twitter accounts!

Thank you!

http://igg.me/at/l7DwHJgB3ww

You can donate online by credit card at the link above.

If you prefer to donate by check, you can send it to:

Texas Moratorium Network
3616 Far West Blvd, Suite 117, Box 251
Austin, Texas 78731

Donations are not tax-deductible.

Exactly one month ago today, on June 8, 2015, Alfred Dewayne Brown walked free for the first time after more than ten years in solitary confinement on Texas death row for a crime he did not commit.

Today we reached a milestone in our collective effort to help him rebuild his life. We hit $3,585 raised and we still have about two weeks to go before the end of the fundraising campaign. We set a goal of raising $5,000 and now we know that the goal is within reach, but we need to ask you to help us reach the goal by sending the link to the fundraising page to your friends with a personal request for them to help Dewayne.

Ask your friends how they would deal with freedom after ten years on death row. They would certainly worry about having enough for food, clothes and other basic necessities. Please send the link to 3 or 4 friends and mostly likely one of them will pitch in to help.

If you have contacts at any organizations you could also ask them to send out the link in their newsletter or email their members. You could also post the link to your facebook and twitter accounts!

Thank you!

http://igg.me/at/l7DwHJgB3ww

You can donate online by credit card at the link above.

If you prefer to donate by check, you can send it to:

Texas Moratorium Network
3616 Far West Blvd, Suite 117, Box 251
Austin, Texas 78731

Donations are not tax-deductible.

After more than ten years on Texas death row for a crime he did not commit, Alfred Dewayne Brown walked free and into the loving arms of his family and friends on June 8, 2015. “I went in an innocent man and I came out an innocent man,” said Brown. Now, he needs your help so that he can rebuild his life. Can you please help him?

Donate to Help Texas Death Row Survivor Alfred Dewayne Brown.

Together with other friends, we have created a fundraising campaign for Dewayne on Indiegogo. In 2004, we conducted a fundraising campaign for Ernest Willis when he was released from Texas death row. We raised $1,000 for Ernest. In 2010, we conducted a campaign to raise funds to help Anthony Graves. We raised $3,500 for Anthony (watch video). Now, we are setting a goal of $5,000 to raise for Alfred Dewayne Brown.

Click to donate. Everything donation gets us closer to making Dewayne’s transition from death row to freedom a little easier.

Alfred Dewayne Brown has been placed on the Death Penalty Information Center’s Innocence List as Exoneree #154.

Lisa Falkenberg, a columnist for the Houston Chronicle, took notice of Dewayne and wrote a series of articles concerning his case and the Grand Jury. Making waves around the world and winning the coveted Pulitzer Prize for her series, Ms. Falkenberg has shed light on the barbaric Grand Jury system in Harris County, from threatening witnesses to using ex-cops to serve as foreman (on nine juries). It took the new DA, Devon Anderson, seven months and two days, to announce that Harris County has no evidence to bring charges against Dewayne and he should be set free.

Dewayne spent 12 years, 2 months and 5 days behind bars for something he had no part in. That is 4,449 days or 106,776 hours of his life that was stolen from him. Nearly every one of those days were spent in solitary in a cell no larger that a small bathroom. Living with the fact that he could be executed any day. Torn away from his family, not being able to be a father to his daughter. For this, the State of Texas needs to compensate Dewayne. But, because of the “clever” wording in the paperwork when Devon Anderson declared that Harris County has no evidence against Dewayne, it will be an uphill battle to win compensation. A battle that will not be won any time soon.

Click to donate.

This is where the people of the world come in. Dewayne needs your help now to get on his feet. He needs to rebuild his life that Harris County and the State of Texas stripped from him. Going straight from solitary to the “free world” is no easy task. He needs time to adjust being able to make decisions on his own, at a pace that is comfortable to him. We can never give these years back to Dewayne. But, we can help him manage more comfortably. Please give what you can. Everything makes a difference.

Read more about the day Dewayne was released here.

This is a typical cell on Texas death row where Dewayne lived in solitary confinement.

This fundraiser is being conducted with the consent of Dewayne Brown, who will receive all funds raised, minus the 3 percent charged by the credit card processing company. We have also obtained consent from Dewayne’s legal team. While Indiegogo Life doesn’t charge a fee, payments are handled by third-party processors who charge a 3% transaction fee.

At the end of the 30 day campaign, the donations will be transferred directly from the life.indiegogo.com system to a bank account set up by Dewayne’s legal team for his exclusive benefit.

The fundraiser organizers are a group of Texas death penalty abolitionists who want to help Dewayne. Organizers include Pat Hartwell, Scott Cobb, Hooman Hedayati, Gloria Rubac, Delia Perez Meyer, and Lily Hughes, as well as the organizations Texas Moratorium Network, Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, Campaign to End the Death Penalty, and others to be listed as they endorse the fundraiser.

Nebraska has abolished its death penalty with an override of the Governor’s veto. Nebraska had a de facto moratorium on executions since 1997 when it carried out its last execution. Nebraska’s officially nonpartisan Legislature is comprised of 35 registered Republicans, 13 Democrats and an independent.

Every state that has abolished the death penalty in modern times has first had an official or de de facto moratorium, which is why we seek a moratorium on executions in Texas. Moratoriums allow time for people who support the death penalty to get used to not executing people and allows a time out for a discussion to abolish the death penalty.

Here in Texas during the 2015 Texas legislative session, we were able to persuade a Texas State Senator to file a bill to completely abolish the penalty for the first time ever in Texas history. While the Texas bill did not pass, it was a significant step in building support to abolish the death penalty in Texas to get a senator to file the bill.

From ABC News:

Nebraska abolished the death penalty on Wednesday in a landmark veto-override vote backed by an unusual coalition of conservatives who oppose capital punishment.

Senators in the one-house Legislature voted 30-19 to override Gov. Pete Ricketts, a Republican who supports the death penalty. The vote makes Nebraska the first traditionally conservative state to eliminate the punishment since North Dakota in 1973.

Nebraska joins 18 other states and the District of Columbia in banning the ultimate punishment.

Some senators said they philosophically support the death penalty, but are convinced the state will never carry out another execution because of legal obstacles. Nebraska hasn’t executed an inmate since a 1997 electrocution, and the state has never done so with its current lethal injection protocol.

In another success stemming from our lobby day back on March 3, Rep. Harold Dutton’s bill to ban the death penalty in law of parties cases (HB 341) has been approved by the Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence, which recommended that it “be reported favorably to the full house with the recommendation that it do pass”. The vote was 4-2. Two Republicans and two Democrats voted yes. One Republican and one Democrat voted no. And one Republican was absent.

The bi-partisan support for the bill bodes well for it to gain enough support to pass the entire House. Please contact your Texas state representative and urge them to support HB 341.

HB 341 was one of the bills that people lobbied for on the Statewide Texas Lobby Day to Abolish the Death Penalty on March 3. When the bill was heard in committee, we returned to the capitol to support it. One of the people who testified in support of it in the committee hearing was Terri Been, whose brother Jeff Wood is on death row in a law of parties case even though he did not kill anyone himself and did not intend anyone to be killed. He was outside in a car when another person killed a convenience store clerk.

Before it can reach the floor of the House for a vote by all the members of the House, it must first pass the Calendars Committee. Below are the members of the Calendars Committee.

HB 341

The chair laid out HB 341.

Representative Canales moved that HB 341, without amendments, be reported favorably to the full house with the recommendation that it do pass and be printed.  The motion prevailed by the following record vote:

Ayes:                           Representatives Herrero; Canales; Leach; Simpson (4).

Nays:                           Representatives Moody; Shaheen (2).

Present, Not Voting:   None (0).

Absent:                        Representative Hunter (1).