Benjamin Spencer Case: 2024 Innocence Ruling and Compensation

The Benjamin Spencer case is one of the longest wrongful imprisonments in American history: a Dallas man convicted in 1987 for the robbery and murder of businessman Jeffrey Young, held in Texas prisons for nearly 34 years on the strength of false eyewitness testimony and undisclosed fingerprint evidence, released on bond in March 2021, and formally declared innocent by a Dallas County judge on August 29, 2024.¹

The 1987 Crime and Arrest

On the night of March 22, 1987, Jeffrey Young, a 33-year-old Dallas businessman and father of three, was attacked outside his office in the city’s warehouse district. Two men robbed him of his watch, portable radio, and wedding ring, struck him on the head with a blunt object that fractured his skull in five places, put him in the trunk of his BMW, and drove him to West Dallas, where they left him on Puget Street. He died at Parkland Memorial Hospital.¹

Young’s father was a senior executive for Dallas billionaire Ross Perot. Within days, Perot offered a $25,000 reward for information; Young’s employer added $10,000. The $35,000 pot brought witnesses forward quickly.² Police arrested Spencer, then 22, four days after the killing. No physical evidence tied him to the crime. Latent fingerprints lifted from Young’s BMW did not match him, but that fact was never disclosed to the defense, and the fingerprint cards were later lost.³

How the Conviction Was Built

The prosecution’s case ran on eyewitnesses and a jailhouse informant. Three neighbors — Gladys Oliver, Jimmie Cotton, and Charles Stewart — said they had seen Spencer and his co-defendant Robert Mitchell getting out of the victim’s car near where Young was found. They were watching from between 93 and nearly 300 feet away on a cloudy, moonless night.⁴ An informant named Danny Edwards told the jury Spencer had confessed to him behind bars. Spencer said he had an alibi placing him miles from the scene, but that witness was not called at the original trial.⁵

A jury convicted Spencer of murder in October 1987 and sentenced him to 35 years. The conviction was overturned after his lawyer discovered that Oliver had received $580 from Crime Stoppers despite testifying under oath that she had received no money. Prosecutors offered Spencer a plea to aggravated robbery that would have freed him within two to three years. He refused. At the 1988 retrial, an all-white jury convicted him of aggravated robbery and sentenced him to life in prison. Spencer is Black.¹⁴ Robert Mitchell was tried separately, convicted on much of the same testimony, and sentenced to life; he was paroled in 2001 and died shortly afterward.⁶

Why the Evidence Fell Apart

Each pillar of the state’s case turned out to be rotten.

Gladys Oliver had done more than pocket $580 from Crime Stoppers. Investigators later found that Ross Perot had made secret payments to her totaling between $5,000 and $10,000, money she denied receiving under oath at the second trial. Oliver admitted the payments in a 2010 interview.⁷²

Danny Edwards recanted. He told journalist Barbara Bradley Hagerty on tape in 2017: “No, he didn’t say that… In my heart of hearts, he did not do it. I just did what I had to do to get a lighter sentence.”² Jimmie Cotton also recanted. The third eyewitness died. A forensic visual scientist concluded it was physically impossible for any of the witnesses to have identified Spencer’s face from the distances they described on a moonless night.⁵

And then the fingerprints. Prints lifted from Young’s BMW excluded Spencer, but that result was never turned over to his defense, a violation of the rule in Brady v. Maryland requiring prosecutors to disclose evidence favorable to the accused.¹

Decades of Failed Appeals

Spencer refused to apply for parole. Doing so would have required expressing remorse for a crime he did not commit. “Truth has always been more important to me than my freedom,” he said.⁸

In 2001, Jim McCloskey of Centurion Ministries took on the case. His investigators tracked down witnesses, gathered new evidence, and filed a habeas corpus petition in 2004.⁹ In 2008, a trial court held an evidentiary hearing and ruled Spencer actually innocent, entering 300 findings of fact and recommending a new trial. In April 2011, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied relief. The court said Spencer had not carried what it called the “Herculean” burden of proving innocence, noting the absence of DNA evidence and the fact that the lighting and distance issues had been known at trial.¹⁰ He stayed in a maximum-security prison.

The Turn That Finally Freed Him

John Creuzot was elected Dallas County District Attorney in 2018. His office assigned Cynthia Garza, chief of the Conviction Integrity Unit, to reinvestigate. Garza’s team confirmed what Spencer’s defense — attorneys Cheryl Wattley and Gary Udashen, working with Centurion Ministries — had argued for years.¹¹ Wattley, a UNT Dallas law professor, had represented Spencer for 23 years.¹²

The unit found that Oliver had lied about the reward money, that Cotton had falsely testified to seeing Spencer exit the car, that Edwards had falsely claimed a confession, and that prosecutors had withheld the exculpatory fingerprint evidence. “We conducted an independent investigation, and when we did that, it was apparent that Spencer was wrongfully convicted,” Garza said.¹¹

On March 12, 2021, Judge Lela Mays ordered Spencer released on a personal recognizance bond. He walked out of the Dallas County jail after nearly 34 years.⁹ He was free, but not exonerated, and lived for three more years with the possibility of a retrial.

The case returned to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. On May 15, 2024, the court reversed its 2011 position in a per curiam opinion (case WR-69,994-02), setting aside Spencer’s conviction and adopting agreed trial-court findings that there was “substantial and compelling evidence” of false testimony and Brady violations. Justice Yeary dissented, joined by Presiding Judge Keller. The decision became final in June 2024 and was remanded to Dallas County.¹³

The August 2024 Innocence Declaration

On August 29, 2024, a Dallas County judge signed an order declaring Spencer innocent and dismissed all charges. The judge apologized to him in open court.³ Assistant District Attorney Cynthia Garza told the courtroom: “Benjamin Spencer is actually innocent. There exists no credible or physical evidence that he was in any way involved in this crime.”¹⁴

Spencer, then 59, spoke afterward. “I’m excited this day has finally come. I’m happy to be moving forward.”¹ The formal declaration, he told NPR, was “invigorating.” He added: “To have them acknowledge that in such a powerful and mighty way and to proclaim it before the world, it meant a lot.”⁸

Compensation Under Texas Law

Texas pays exonerees a lump sum of up to $80,000 for each year of wrongful incarceration, plus a monthly annuity. For Spencer’s 34 years, the lump sum alone could exceed $2.7 million.¹⁴⁵

Spencer was 22 and expecting a child when he went to prison. His son is now in his late thirties. “I missed the process,” he told NPR. “I’m getting to know him as an individual and as a man.”⁸ The National Registry of Exonerations lists Spencer among the 60 longest-serving inmates in the United States to be declared innocent of the crime for which they were convicted.¹⁴

The Killing of Jeffrey Young Is Still Unsolved

Spencer’s exoneration did not identify who killed Jeffrey Young. The Dallas County District Attorney’s office classified the case as a cold case, and the Conviction Integrity Unit has been searching for the missing fingerprint file from 1987 in the hope that modern forensic tools could point to the actual perpetrators.³

1
KERANEWS. Delayed Justice: Exoneration for Benjamin Spencer, Convicted of Killing a Man in 1987
2
WBUR. Wrongful Conviction of Ben Spencer
3
Fox 4 News. Benjamin Spencer Declared Innocent
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KUOW. Inside the Wrongful Conviction of Ben Spencer
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Centurion Ministries. Benjamine Spencer’s Long Road Home
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Innocence Project. Texas Man Languishes in Prison Despite Evidence of Innocence
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KERANEWS. New Evidence May Free Dallas Man Convicted in Deadly 1987 Robbery
8
NPR. Wrongfully Imprisoned for Decades, Ben Spencer Is Exonerated
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Centurion Ministries. Benjamine Spencer
10
FindLaw. Ex Parte Benjamine John Spencer, No. AP-76244
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Dallas County District Attorney. Press Release: Wrongful Conviction
12
UNT Dallas. Ben Spencer Exoneration
13
Centurion Ministries. Ben Spencer Reversal
14
Texas Tribune. Texas Exoneration: Benjamin Spencer