Clarence Brandley was wrongfully imprisoned by the state of Texas for 9 years. When he finally won his release in the early 1990s, the state of Texas had a message for him — he owed the state for child support payments he had been unable to make during his 9 years in jail.

Brandley, 51, was convicted in 1981 of raping and strangling a 16-year-old girl. Brandley worked as a janitor at a high school, and the girl visited the school as part of a volleyball tournament.

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 divorced 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 pernicious legal doctrine that says citizens cannot sue governments for wrongful acts because, well, they’re the government).

Dianna Thompson of The American Coalition of Fathers and Children told the Houston Chronicle that federal laws makes it illegal for states to forgive child support payments regardless of circumstance.

That law needs to be amended so that parents wrongfully deprived by the state of the opportunity to work and support their children are not penalized later for the wrongful actions of the state. It is not Brandley’s fault but rather the fault of the state of Texas that he did not make regular child support payments for 9 years. Forcing him to pay for the state’s mistake is obscene.

Source:

‘It’s like a double insult. Harvey Rice, Houston Chronicle, April 27, 2002.

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