Russell and Dorothy Budd

Russell and Dorothy Budd created the Budd Innocence Center to educate students, help innocent individuals who were wrongfully convicted, and improve the criminal justice system. “We are honored to support the Budd Innocence Center at our alma mater, ” said the Budds at the time of the Center’s launch. “That is because we believe that, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ For an innocent person to stay in prison because there are not resources available to investigate and prove their innocence is the ultimate injustice.”

Russell Budd is a member of the Texas Law Class of 1979. He is a nationally-recognized trial attorney who has devoted his career to representing individuals and communities injured by corporate malfeasance. Russell is the co-founding partner of the Dallas law firm Baron & Budd.

Dorothy Budd is a member of the Texas Law Class of 1983. After a career as a prosecutor in the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office, she became an Episcopal Deacon at The Church of the Incarnation in Dallas, Texas. Dori and the Budds’ daughter, Peyton Budd ’16, are co-authors of Tested: How Twelve Wrongly Imprisoned Men Held Onto Hope — a book focused on the courage of prisoners who were later exonerated.