Are Mistakes Bigger in Texas Too?

Eric Friedman
July 16, 2010

In 1991, a teenager named Stephen Brodie was arrested in the Dallas suburb of Richardson for stealing quarters from a soda machine. Brodie was deaf, which made him ill-equipped for dealing with the police, who, in an 18-hour interrogation, accused Brodie of the unsolved sexual assault of a five-year-old girl, despite the lack of physical evidence linking Brodie to the crime scene.

Brodie denied it but eventually gave up and confessed. “It was a lot of stress, because (the detective) was asking me so many questions over and over again,” Brodie told the Associated Press. “I got fed up. I gave up. It”s easy to give up.”

Brodie and his lawyer saw which way the wind was blowing, so to avoid a 99-year sentence, he cut a deal and pled guilty, ultimately serving 10 years.

While Brodie served his term, Richardson police found a fingerprint on the victim”s window that was a match for a man Dallas police said was responsible for a string of sexual assaults in the early 90s. But Richardson police dismissed the evidence and a judge ruled on appeal that Brodie”s confession outweighed the new evidence.

Brodie”s luck is not all bad. He is in Dallas County, where DA Craig Watkins has instituted the nation”s first “Conviction Integrity Unit,” and they are on the case.

“If they find me not guilty and I”m exonerated, I”m getting out of Texas,” said Brodie.