Clarence Brandley - Chronology of Events

Chronology of Events

Cheryl Dee Fergeson, a 16-year-old junior at Bellville High School, was murdered on August 23, 1980. Ferguson was part of a school volleyball 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 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 legal doctrine denying citizens the power to sue governments 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.