Man in Prison for Decades Over Killing of His Sexual Abuser Is Released

The plaza outside the Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center (photo by Lauren Johnson)

Jim Young was one of the Travis County prosecutors who helped send Alvin Stewart to prison in 2002. Stewart had been accused of killing Philip Thomas, his former middle school teacher, two years earlier at the age of 18. A jury convicted Stewart of manslaughter and aggravated robbery and gave him a 65-year sentence.

Young told us he had forgotten about the case when he received a letter from Stewart in 2015, asking for help in getting his sentence reduced. “You get to see hundreds, if not thousands, of those letters in your career,” Young said. “This one was different than any I’d ever seen before. He was absolutely clear that he was guilty, but he said that there was this sexual assault, sexual abuse.”

In the letter, Stewart said that Thomas had sexually assaulted him for years before the killing, something his defense attorney had never investigated and that was not explained to his jury. He said that he hadn’t meant to murder Thomas and expressed remorse for killing him. He said he didn’t believe his 65-year sentence was fair.

Young visited Stewart in prison and agreed. He told us he tried and failed to get two district attorneys, Rosemary Lehmberg and Margaret Moore, to look into the case. But the case began to move in 2021, after current D.A. José Garza was elected and local defense attorney Robert Daniel stepped up to defend Stewart. Daniel and investigators with the D.A.’s conviction integrity unit found and interviewed former students, teachers, and administrators from the now-closed Pearce Middle School, where Stewart first met Thomas. These witnesses, along with Young, Stewart, and Stewart’s original defense attorney, offered testimony at four days of in-person hearings at the Travis County courthouse from June through October of 2024. At the end of the hearings, Daniel and the D.A.’s Office jointly presented Judge Karen Sage with a set of findings of fact and conclusions of law, a court document summarizing the testimony.

The findings of fact and conclusions of law state that Philip Thomas ran a club, called the Pretty Boys Club, for popular male students at Pearce Middle School in the early 2000s, grooming them for sex and buying them Air Jordan sneakers, tickets to sporting events, and other gifts. “The deceased offered students money if they would be willing to do 'favors’ for him,” the findings state. “The deceased told 'off-color sexual jokes’ to students at Pearce Middle School. The deceased’s off-color jokes often involved penises or masturbation. The deceased told jokes about him masturbating students to orgasm.”

The findings state that Thomas performed oral sex on Stewart for the first time when he was 13 years old, leaving him embarrassed and fearful that the teacher would tell other students what had happened. Similar assaults continued intermittently for the next several years until the day of Thomas’ death, when, after sex, he and Stewart had a physical altercation in which Stewart punched him in the stomach hard enough to kill him. The findings state that Stewart’s defense attorney failed to investigate the relationship between Thomas and his client and that if he had learned the nature of it and presented the information at trial Stewart’s jury would not have sentenced him to 65 years in prison.

Judge Sage signed off on the findings of fact at a hearing last November, concluding that Stewart deserved a new trial. He and his family wept as the judge apologized. “All of the systems failed you,” Sage told Stewart. “The educational system failed you, the justice system certainly failed you. ... Mr. Stewart, I am so sorry that we failed you so badly.” The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals agreed in March that Stewart should be resentenced. On April 17, Sage resentenced him to five years in prison and credited him for the 23 years he has already served. He is now a free man.

Jim Young praised Robert Daniel and the D.A.’s conviction integrity unit for working together to free Stewart. When this reporter suggested Young also deserves credit, he replied reluctantly: “That’s fair enough. Even though he might have been eligible for parole in seven or eight years, guys that get 65-year sentences generally don’t get parole.”

Without intervention, Stewart, who is now in his early 40s, would likely have died in prison.