How states are making their legal systems more equitable, seen through the story of a Black man falsely imprisoned for thirty years for murder.

In 1987, Ben Spencer, a twenty-two-year-old Black man from Dallas, was convicted of murdering white businessman Jeffrey Young—a crime he didn’t commit. From the day of his arrest, Spencer insisted that it was “an awful mistake.” The Texas legal system didn’t see it that way. It allowed shoddy police work, paid witnesses, and prosecutorial misconduct to convict Spencer of murder, and it ignored later efforts to correct this error. The state’s bureaucratic intransigence caused Spencer to spend more than half his life in prison.

Eventually independent investigators, new witness testimony, the foreman of the jury that convicted him, and a new Dallas DA convinced a Texas judge that Spencer had nothing to do with the killing, and in 2021 he was released from prison.

As Spencer’s fight to clear himself demonstrates, our legal systems are broken: expedience is more important than the truth. That is starting to change as states across the country implement new efforts to reduce wrongful convictions, and one of the states leading the way is Texas.

Award-winning journalist Barbara Bradley Hagerty has spent years digging into this issue, and she has immersed herself in Spencer’s case. She has combed police files and court records, interviewed dozens of witnesses, and had extensive conversations with Spencer, and in Bringing Ben Home she threads together two narratives: how an innocent Black man got caught up in and couldn’t escape a legal system that refused to admit its mistakes; and what Texas and other states are doing to address wrongful convictions to make the legal process more equitable for everyone.

By turns fascinating and enraging, personal and provocative, Bringing Ben Home is the powerful story of one innocent man who refused to admit that he was guilty of murder, and how his plight became part of a paradigm shift in how the legal system thinks about innocence as it institutes new methods to overturn wrongful convictions to better protect people like Ben Spencer.

CONTENTS

Introduction: A Specimen in Amber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv

PART 1. CONVICTION
Chapter 1: A Murder in Dallas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
Chapter 2: The Day After . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
Chapter 3: Defying Gravity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Chapter 4: A Break in the Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Chapter 5: No Excuse. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Chapter 6: Entering the Tunnel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Chapter 7: Witnesses for Sale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Chapter 8: Alternatively. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66
Chapter 9: A Noble Cause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77
Chapter 10: In the Shadow of Henry Wade. . . . . . . . . . 88
Chapter 11: The Shell Game. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100
Chapter 12: What the Jury Saw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Chapter 13: The Defense Rests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Chapter 14: A Brief History of Innocence. . . . . . . . . . 129

PART 2. APPEAL
Chapter 15: No Harm, No Foul. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .143
Chapter 16: The Priest of Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Chapter 17: Double Helix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .165
Chapter 18: A Punitive Turn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Chapter 19: A Network of Innocents. . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Chapter 20: Batman and Robbery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .195
Chapter 21: Down to the Studs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .207
Chapter 22: A New Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Chapter 23: Lost in Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .225
Chapter 24: A Second Bite at the Apple . . . . . . . . . . 236
Chapter 25: Judgment Day Redux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Chapter 26: Ground Truth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
Chapter 27: No Way Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272

PART 3. DARKNESS AND LIGHT
Chapter 28: The Surge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Chapter 29: Innocence Deniers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
Chapter 30: No Justice for Some . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
Chapter 31: Fresh Eyes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
Chapter 32: And Then There Were None. . . . . . . . . 335
Chapter 33: Reprieve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
Chapter 34: Limbo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
Chapter 35: State of Play. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
Chapter 36: A Partial Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

Author’s Note 387
Acknowledgments 393
Notes 397
Index 431

xvi introduction

The story of Benjamine Spencer, a Black man convicted of robbing and killing a white man in Dallas in 1987, unfolds on two levels: the procedural and the personal. Procedurally, his experience mirrors that of thousands of innocent men and women in prison. It boils down to this settled fact: Convicting an innocent person is easy; undoing the mistake is almost impossible.

His journey also spans the modern innocence movement that began with Jim McCloskey. One year after Spencer was sentenced to life in prison, DNA exonerated a prisoner convicted of rape—the first time the technology was employed to free an innocent person in the United States. Suddenly, the judicial system, the media, and the public at large saw that the foundation on which prosecutors had al ways built their cases was rickety at best. DNA could offer irrefutable evidence that someone else, almost certainly not the suspect in custody, had raped or killed the victim. DNA proved that evidence such as eyewitness testimony, ballistics, hair comparisons, finger printing—even confessions from the suspect—could be flatout wrong. But if DNA is the deus ex machina for innocent prisoners, it is a selective god, visiting only 10 to 20 percent of crime scenes. Like the vast majority of prisoners who claim to be innocent, DNA could not help Ben Spencer. Without unassailable forensic evidence, Spencer’s several appeals failed.

Even as some states have tried to avoid mistakes with new procedures and better science, they cannot fix two problems at the root of the US criminal justice system: the human mind and the human body. Can a witness accurately record and replay a crime that takes place in a split second on a dark, moonless night? What if the witness is poor or has an axe to grind; can science erase the motive to lie? Jailhouse informants play a leading role in murder convictions, an astonishing fact unique to the United States: What is to stop these criminals from trading bogus “confessions” from the suspect for a shorter sentence for themselves? Police, rushing to find the culprit while the trail still has scent, have been known to discard or ignore evidence that points away from their suspect. Prosecutors have rationalized burying a piece of evidence because it muddies the clear story they are trying to tell in the interest of serving justice.

If convicting the innocent is the natural result of human error, undoing the mistake is thwarted by the legal system—specifically, by the concept of “finality.” Appellate judges rarely overturn jury verdicts; after all, they did not sit in court listening to evidence and assessing witnesses, so who are they to second-guess the jury? And while Americans now recognize that the government routinely convicts innocent people, Congress and the US Supreme Court have narrowed the path to freedom for the wrongly convicted by systematically blocking the federal courts’ ability to review a jury verdict, even in the face of obvious innocence.

On a personal level, Ben Spencer was twenty-two years old when he was arrested, newly married to Debra, and expecting a child. At first confident that the police would sort things out, he watched in disbelief as he was indicted, convicted, sentenced to life in prison, and denied parole year after year. The toll on Spencer, on his wife and son, on his family and friends, on their faith in God and in the law can never be calculated. These private narratives are almost always hidden. But Ben and Debra Spencer have allowed us the rare privilege of surveying the wreckage the system has wrought.

For several months during 2020 and 2021, I lived in Dallas, trying to uncover new evidence and solve the murder of Jeffrey Young. My efforts felt futile at times. Once the Texas legal system found Ben Spencer guilty, it was as if that judgment sealed him in amber, and he needed an extraordinary instrument, such as DNA, to free him. Without this scientific cudgel, Spencer’s lawyers and investigators had to make do with something akin to an ice pick, trying to chip away at his conviction, filing writs and parole applications, petitioning one district attorney after another, hoping that these efforts would eventually crack apart his case and release him as an innocent man.

The thirty-seven years since Spencer was incarcerated have seen a reckoning. Defense attorneys across the country began publicizing wrongful convictions. The public noticed, as did judges, legislators, and a new breed of prosecutor. Rather than simply denying the mistakes, most states began to recognize that prosecutions can go off the rails, and some have tried to eliminate the most egregious flaws. In a happy surprise, on this issue the most progressive state in the country is Texas. In part because the cost of error is so high—the state executes more people than any other—Texas has set up a number of guardrails and is by far the state that most generously recompenses its exonerees.

Thus Texas is the perfect starting point to begin and end the story of Ben Spencer, the logical place to examine the failure of American justice and the incipient attempts to redeem it. For this journey, Ben Spencer is a consummate guide.

Praise for Bringing Ben Home:

“Barbara Bradley Hagerty has written a true-crime story that reads like a legal thriller and, at the same time, recounts the systemic failures of the judicial system. It is eye-opening, discouraging, and inspiring.” —Christian Science Monitor, Best Books of 2024

“Engaging … in the vein of a legal thriller … but what makes Hagerty’s book important is its wider focus, setting [Ben] Spencer’s tragedy in the context of rampant wrongful arrests and convictions across the country.” —Dallas Morning News

“Hagerty takes readers through Ben [Spencer’s] story, from the rushed investigation to the uphill battle to prove his innocence. When describing each piece of the process, such as the use of jailhouse informants, Hagerty draws on examples from other exonerees' cases …including interviews with many people involved in Ben's case and excerpts of his letters from prison. Bringing Ben Home shines a wrenching, difficult spotlight on the U.S. legal system's potential for extraordinary failure...This could be a great read for YAs interested in law and justice.” —Booklist

“A thought-provoking cultural discussion of wrongful convictions based on race. … The author’s narrative persuasively demonstrates how deeply embedded racism is in the fabric of the American criminal justice system … A stirring account of a legal travesty that effectively reveals a rotten core within the justice system.” —Kirkus Review

“A compelling, important, and deeply unsettling account [that] …makes clear the extent to which the legal cards can be too easily stacked against poor people and members of minority groups.” —Christian Science Monitor

“Ben Spencer’s story is beautifully told by a gifted and determined journalist: There is great suffering, injustice, corruption, waste, and, in the end, redemption. Barbara Bradley Hagerty’s vivid account of his nightmare is simply unforgettable.” —John Grisham, author of The Exchange

“Bringing Ben Home explores the ways our legal system punishes the innocent and ignores its mistakes. This book is a revelation to anyone interested in justice, truth, and humanity.”—Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking

“Barbara Bradley Hagerty's painstaking reportage shines through with clarity, and that clarity beckons the reader to reevaluate justice, innocence, and equity in America.” —Caleb Gayle, author of We Refuse to Forget

“In the tale of Ben Spencer's fight for freedom, we get righteous anger, unlikely grace, and Hollywood twists. But we also get that rarest bird in the annals of mass incarceration: hope. I was blown away.”—Maurice Chammah, author of Let the Lord Sort Them

“As someone who spent three decades as a trial court prosecutor, I was horrified by the casual callousness that led to many of the wrongful convictions detailed in this important, beautiful, and infuriating work.” —Glenn Kirschner, MSNBC legal analyst

“As a member of the San Antonio Four who served 13 years in a Texas prison for a crime that never occurred, this book dredged up a lot of feelings and memories – frustration, helplessness, and finally hope when someone on the outside believes you.” —Anna Vasquez, director of outreach, Innocence Project of Texas

“A spellbinding story of resilience and faith. It’s a fascinating account of a broken justice system and what people are doing to help mend it.”—James Martin, S.J., author of Jesus: A Pilgrimage

“Bringing Ben Home achieves a rare feat: simultaneously infuriating, fascinating, and inspiring. The author’s personal commitment to her subject and his family filled me with awe. This is a luminous book.” —Allison Leotta, author of The Last Good Girl

"Barbara Bradley Hagerty brings her keen eye to the phenomenon of wrongful convictions in this beautifully written and accessible exploration of an injustice in Texas. As she makes clear, when an innocent person is convicted, the harm transcends that individual's suffering and affects all of us.” —Daniel Medwed, author of Barred: Why the Innocent Can't Get Out of Prison

“There are valuable lessons here about the reasons for wrongful convictions and the immense difficulty of obtaining justice. With drama, insight, and conviction, Barbara Bradley Hagerty describes how a remarkable team proved Ben Spencer’s innocence and won his freedom.” — Stephen Bright, Yale Law School, veteran death penalty attorney

Barbara Bradley Hagerty is the author of the New York Times-bestselling Fingerprints of God and Life Reimagined. She is also an award-winning journalist who spent nearly 20 years as a correspondent for NPR. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Vogue, and The Christian Science Monitor. A recipient of the Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellowship in Science and Religion, and a Knight Fellowship at Yale Law School, she lives with her husband in Washington, D.C. View titles by Barbara Bradley Hagerty