On May 16, 1994, Richard Miles was walking home from a friend’s house when his life changed forever. He was arrested seemingly out of nowhere on suspicion of murder — a crime he didn’t commit. What followed was a 15-year fight for his freedom, and the launch of a Texas movement that’s still helping the formerly incarcerated rebuild their lives today.
A Teenager Wrongfully Convicted of Murder
Richard Miles was a teenager with plans and ambitions when Dallas police arrested him in May 1994. Within a year of his arrest, Miles was wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to sixty years in prison.
He maintained his innocence from day one. He has never wavered.
15 Years Behind Bars — And Letters to Anyone Who Would Listen
Inside prison, Miles refused to accept the system’s verdict. He wrote letters — constantly. To attorneys. To advocacy organizations. To journalists. To anyone he thought might listen.
Most ignored him. His legal appeals and petitions failed. But Miles did not give up.
Years later, on a fellow prisoner’s suggestion, he wrote to Centurion Ministries — a nonprofit that investigates wrongful convictions and works to free the innocent.
They took the case.
How Centurion Ministries Found the Evidence That Set Him Free
Working alongside Miles’s father, Centurion investigators combed through hundreds of police records. Buried in those files: reports containing an exculpatory confession from the one witness who had testified against him — testimony that had never been disclosed to the defense.
That single discovery cracked the case open.
In 2009, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals declared Richard Miles actually innocent, citing the police reports that he and his father had finally uncovered.
A Landmark Texas Exoneration Without DNA
Miles’s case became one of the most significant wrongful conviction cases in Texas history. Crucially, it was the state’s first major exoneration achieved without DNA evidence.
The case exposed failures in police evidence disclosure and demonstrated, beyond any doubt, how wrongful convictions can result from broken process — not just bad luck. Miles described his fight to prove his innocence as “David fighting Goliath,” pointing out the staggering discrepancy between his defense attorney’s resources and the prosecutor’s.
And yet, his persistence prevailed.
Growing Up Behind Bars
The 15 years Miles lost weren’t just years spent in a cell. They were the years most people his age were becoming adults — getting jobs, building careers, falling in love, becoming parents.
Miles describes growing up in prison as leaving a person “emotionally handicapped.” While the world outside moved forward, young men like him were forced to navigate adulthood from behind concrete walls — with no access to modern technology, no opportunities to learn how to talk to a girl, no chance to make and recover from the small mistakes that shape a person.
“Going back to a place where you were not supposed to be, and didn’t want you.” — Richard Miles
Miles of Freedom — Turning Pain Into Purpose
When Miles was released, he made a choice that defines his life today. He chose not to focus on what had been taken from him — but on what he could give to others walking the same road.
In 2012, he founded Miles of Freedom — a Texas nonprofit dedicated to helping formerly incarcerated individuals successfully return to society. The organization provides employment assistance, job-readiness training, educational opportunities, mentoring, and more — everything a person needs to rebuild a life after incarceration.
Why Reentry Needs Purpose, Not Just Freedom
Miles is the first to point out that freedom alone doesn’t solve everything. Many formerly incarcerated people leave prison only to discover that building a successful life on the outside is harder than they imagined.
Society, Miles explains, is not built to help them.
That’s why he believes purpose is essential for successful reentry. Jobs matter. But people need more than a paycheck. They need a reason to move forward and build a meaningful life. That’s the core philosophy driving Miles of Freedom.
A Legacy of Hope
Richard Miles lost 15 years to a wrongful conviction. Those years can never be returned.
Yet his story isn’t defined by what was taken from him — it’s defined by perseverance, hope, and the thousands of lives he continues to impact by helping others find purpose and a path forward.
Today, he is a husband, a father of two daughters, a man of faith, and a community leader. His case stands as a reminder of the failures that put an innocent teenager behind bars for fifteen years. But his greatest legacy may be the work he’s done since — using the experience that broke him to rebuild others.
Why This Matters for JRF
Richard Miles’s story is the kind that drives the work at the Justice Reform Foundation. The systemic failures that put him behind bars — under-resourced defense, suppressed evidence, prosecutorial misconduct — are the same failures JRF works every day to prevent.
Through our Criminal Defense Clinic at Texas A&M School of Law, we provide indigent defendants the kind of representation that could have changed Richard Miles’s outcome. Through our Expungement Program, we help Texans clear qualifying records so a single moment doesn’t become a life sentence of poverty and stigma.
Share Your Story or Support the Work
Every voice we feature in the Stories of Injustice series is a person the system failed — and a reminder of the work still ahead.
Source: Interview with Richard Miles, March 16, 2026. Photo: courtesy of Miles of Freedom.
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