What happened to Alfred Dewayne Brown, one of the main subjects in Netflix docies centers on exculpatory evidence that led to Brown's exoneration from death row. The Innocence Files released in April 2020, and was inspired by the work of The Innocence Project — founded in 1992 by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld.
In 2003, Brown and two other men were arrested for a double homicide in Houston, Texas. One of the victims was a police officer, which ultimately affected the subsequent investigation and trial. Despite having an alibi, Brown ended up being convicted and sentenced to death, as missing phone records couldn't his whereabouts and two accomplices identified him as the shooter. In addition, Brown's girlfriend Ericka Dockery changed her original alibi story and claimed that Brown confessed to the murders. Much of The Innocence Files episode features Dockery explaining the circumstances for her testimony, most notably that she needed to protect her children's future after being threatened during Grand Jury proceedings.
The Innocence Files documents Brown's legal relationship with lawyer Brian Stolarz, who took on his case in 2007. Four years later, Dockery recanted her testimony after reporter Lisa Falkenberg unravelled a conspiracy involving prosecutor Dan Rizzo. By 2013, a box of phone records were found by detective Breck McDaniel in his garage, and were subsequently used to prove Brown's innocence. In The Innocence Files on Netflix, Stolarz describes the missing evidence as the DNA of a non-DNA case, and a private e-mail between Rizzo and McDaniel reveals that they discussed the phone records one day after Dockery's Grand Jury testimony. Brown was convicted in 2005 and exonerated in 2015.
As shown in The Innocence Files on Netflix, Brown traveled across America as a truck driver after being released. It's also revealed that his "actual innocence" was legally declared in 2019, which would make him eligible for compensation. In 2020, Brown reportedly hasn't received any payments for being wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death, evidenced by a September 2019 Houston Chronicle report about Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's intervention. The compensation denial is briefly mentioned in The Innocence Files.
In the present, Brown is now focused on living a "quiet, peaceful life" in Louisiana (via The Innocence Files, and "that these injustices are not over."