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A Dallas man who spent 24 years in prison for sex crimes he didn’t commit was exonerated and compensated by the state of Texas in 2009. Now the woman who stood by him – for a little while, anyway – before divorcing him while he was in prison wants a cut of the $6 million he was awarded.
Stand By Your Man?
Steven Phillips’ convictions in 1982 and 1983 for a string of sex crimes were based on eyewitness testimony, according to the Texas Tribune. His wife at the time, Traci, insisted on his innocence and spent the next decade visiting him in prison.
But by 1992, the couple had divorced. It would be over another decade before Phillips was exonerated by DNA evidence that showed he was innocent – after he’d spent 24 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. The state of Texas awarded him almost $6 million in a lump sum, monthly annuities, health care and education benefits.
That’s when Traci, now Traci Tucker, came knocking – with a lawsuit.
A state judge awarded her $150,000 in 2012 – about 2.6 percent of Phillips’ booty – but Phillips appealed. Lawyers in Texas expect the case to go all the way to the Texas Supreme Court, since it’s the first of its kind: The exoneration-compensation law doesn’t address this situation.
Community or Separate Property?
The success of Tucker’s suit for a cut of Phillips’ compensation will depend on how it is characterized and whether it is considered community property. Texas is one of the nine states that recognize community property – property that, in general, is accumulated during the marriage and split between divorcing spouses.
In those states, things that are considered separate property belong to one spouse or the other.
Bill De La Garza
“If [Phillips’] recovery [of the compensation] is for personal injury (like a tort claim) it would be his separate property,” says Bill De La Garza, a family lawyer in Houston. “If one can prove to the Court by clear and convincing evidence that it is separate property, then the Court cannot award separate property of one spouse to the other spouse.”
But, De La Garza adds, “if the award included compensation for lost wages, that would be community property during the years of marriage while he was wrongfully incarcerated, [and] that should be subject to division.”
Tucker will likely argue that for Phillips to retain “100 percent of the community compensation would not be just and right as required by the Texas Family Code,” De La Garza says.
But Phillips is arguing on appeal that the compensation is not for lost wages, but is simply a mandated amount based on the years he was wrongly imprisoned, not based on what he would have earned if he’d been working.
Unclear Compensation Law
The Texas law that provides for compensation of imprisoned people who are exonerated does not address how to classify the payments.
A state representative, Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, admitted to the Tribune, “We did not think about entitlement by spouses who had become divorced from these innocent men while they were in prison.”
Phillips even spent money on a lawyer who lobbied the legislature to increase compensation for exonerees; he then ended up suing the lawyer, who billed him for more than $1 million, for an unspecified reason. He says he doesn’t harbor any ill will toward Tucker. But he’s obviously not giving in.
As to whether the Texas compensation law will be changed in response to this case, that jury is still out. “Maybe the basis of the award needs to be more specifically defined in the law to make more clear what the wrongfully incarcerated are being compensated for,” De La Garza opines.
