A man spends 4 years in prison. The victim recants. He won’t get any money from the state.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\nWelborn and Pierce\u00a0were charged but never tried. Charges against them were dismissed before trial.<\/p>\n
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That procedural history matters.<\/p>\n
![\"Robert]()
<\/p>\n
Robert Scott, brother of Michael Scott, smiles after Michael was exonerated at a hearing for four men wrongfully accused in the 1991 Austin yogurt shop murders at the Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center in Austin on Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. Forrest Welborn, Michael Scott, Robert Springsteen and Maurice Pierce, who is deceased, were declared actually innocent during the hearing.<\/p>\n
Jay Janner\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n
The Tim Cole Act<\/p>\n
Under the state\u2019s Tim Cole Act, people who are wrongfully imprisoned can receive $80,000 for each year they spent behind bars, along with a lifetime annuity, tuition assistance at public colleges and universities and access to certain counseling and reentry services. The law is named for Tim Cole, who died in prison in 1999 while serving a 25-year sentence for a rape he did not commit.<\/p>\n
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Since 2009, Texas has paid about $118 million to at least 147 people deemed wrongfully convicted, according to the state comptroller\u2019s office.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But Welborn would not be eligible for compensation under the Tim Cole Act because he was never convicted or imprisoned, said Charlie Press, director of the wrongful conviction clinic at the University of Texas School of Law. Pierce\u2019s family would likewise not qualify under the statute. (Pierce died in 2010 during an unrelated confrontation with police.)<\/p>\n
![\"Kim]()
<\/p>\n
Kim Pierce, left, the widow of yogurt shop suspect Maurice Pierce, and their daughter Marisa, listen to a news conference after Maurice was exonerated at a hearing for four men wrongfully accused in the 1991 Austin yogurt shop murders at the Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center in Austin on Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. Forrest Welborn, Michael Scott, Robert Springsteen and Maurice Pierce, who is deceased, were declared actually innocent during the hearing.<\/p>\n
Jay Janner\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n
If eligible,\u00a0Springsteen and Scott could each receive roughly $800,000 for the time they were incarcerated, in addition to annuity payments and benefits.<\/p>\n
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However, eligibility is not automatic. Historically, most people compensated under the Tim Cole Act were either declared actually innocent by the Court of Criminal Appeals or pardoned on the basis of innocence.<\/p>\n
In this case, the Court of Criminal Appeals never made such a finding. Instead, a Travis County district judge declared the men “actually innocent”
last week after police publicly renounced the case against them and identified the deceased serial killer\u00a0Robert Eugene Brashers as the sole suspect in the case.<\/p>\n
Because the exonerations took an atypical route, attorneys and legal experts say it is unclear whether the comptroller will determine\u00a0that Springsteen and Scott qualify under the statute.<\/p>\n
Potential civil litigation<\/p>\n
Another possible avenue is civil litigation.<\/p>\n
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Experts say the three surviving men and Pierce\u2019s family could pursue lawsuits against the city of Austin over the police investigation and against Travis County over prosecutorial decisions. Unlike the Tim Cole Act, civil lawsuits do not have statutory caps on damages.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no ceiling in civil litigation,\u201d Press said. \u201cIt\u2019s what a jury or judge determines is appropriate. But prevailing in a civil rights case is not straightforward.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Forrest]()
<\/p>\n
Forrest Welborn, left, and his attorney Steve Goodson listen to the news conference after Welborn was exonerated at a hearing for four men wrongfully accused in the 1991 Austin yogurt shop murders at the Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center in Austin on Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. Forrest Welborn, Michael Scott, Robert Springsteen and Maurice Pierce, who is deceased, were declared actually innocent during the hearing.<\/p>\n
Jay Janner\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n
Austin civil rights attorney Jeff Edwards previously represented a man named Richard Danziger in a wrongful conviction case stemming from a 1988 Austin murder. Danziger, who was beaten by another inmate while incarcerated and suffered a severe brain injury, was later exonerated through DNA testing. He received a $9 million settlement from the city of Austin and Travis County.<\/p>\n
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Edwards said he could \u201cconceive of a credible claim\u201d arising from the\u00a0yogurt shop arrests and incarcerations, particularly for Scott and Springsteen, who were convicted and imprisoned.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the kind of injustice that could result in a civil action,\u201d Edwards said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Scott and his daughter Jazmine Scott listen to a news conference after he was exonerated at a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-177048","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-headlines","10":"tag-austin-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}