Harris County | CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

Criminal Law Blog by Defense Lawyer John Floyd and Mr. Billy Sinclair

February 24, 2010

A TIP OF THE HAT FOR A JOB WELL DONE

Filed under: Homicide Crimes Lawyer — Tags: child abuse, fabricated forensic evidence, Harris County, homicide, Murder — johntfloyd @ 1:18 pm

Court Recommends New Trial for Man Sentenced to Life in Prison for Capital Murder After Finding State’s Expert Testimony Incompetent

By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

We have blogged rather extensively about the “convict at any costs” agenda which has ruled the Harris County District Attorney’s Office for the past three decades. “Convict at any costs” means the frequent use of fabricated forensic evidence, knowingly allowing perjured testimony into a criminal trial, withholding exculpatory evidence from defendants (particularly those known to be innocent), and injecting race in its death penalty decision-making.

These experiences with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office do not give rise to much hope that a District Attorney could be an example of courage. But that is precisely what we found in the recent actions of former Montgomery County District Attorney Michael McDougal, who lost his bid for re-election to Brett Ligon. Nearly 12 years ago McDougal’s office prosecuted Neil Hampton Robbins for capital murder in connection with the death of Robbins’ former girlfriend’s 17-month-old daughter, Tristen Rivet. Robbins was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the toddler’s death.

Robbins’ conviction was based in large part of the testimony then Harris County Medical Examiner, Dr. Patricia Moore. We have also blogged in the past about Dr. Moore’s history of providing false or discredited testimony in child death cases. http://www.johntfloyd.com/comments/september09/17.htm On January 22, 2010, the proverbial chickens came home to roost in the Neil Robbins case. Montgomery County District Court Judge K. Michael Mayes ruled that Dr. Moore had given inept testimony during Robbins’ May 1998 murder trial. Judge Mayes’ concluded the former medical examiner was too incompetent “to offer objective and pathologically sound opinions on the cause and manner of [the] death [of Tristen Rivet].”

In May of 2007 Dr. Moore tried to clean up the testimony she had given in the Robbins case by reviewing her findings that Tristen Rivet’s death was a homicide. Based on unidentified information she said she had not reviewed in her original examination of Rivet’s body (after which she found the toddler’s death was a homicide caused by a compressed skull), Dr. Moore changed her “cause of death” finding from homicide to “undetermined.”

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August 29, 2009

REFORM OR INCOMPETENCE: THE PAT LYKOS ERA OFF TO UNCERTAIN START

Filed under: Houston Criminal Lawyer — Tags: DA Lycos, DIVERT, Harris County, jail suicides, offense reports, secret police squads — johntfloyd @ 6:26 pm

Harris County District Attorney’s Office Administration Begins to Define Itself

By: Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John Floyd and paralegal Billy Sinclair

The Houston Chronicle reported recently in yet another article that a number of veteran prosecutors have departed from the Harris County District Attorney’s Office. Throughout DA Pat Lykos’ 2008 campaign to replace the former district attorney, Charles “Chuck” Rosenthal who was forced to resign in disgrace, rumors dogged the “reform” candidate that, as a criminal district court judge, Lykos had a reputation for being intemperate, rude, and pronged to stirring unrest in both her courtroom and chambers.

Shortly after Lykos defeated Democratic candidate Johnny Bradford last November she promised to “clean house” as the Chronicle reported. Upon taking office, she immediately fired seven “veteran prosecutors” from the Rosenthal era. Some criminal defense attorneys hailed the firings as an indication that the “convict at any costs” prosecutorial philosophy of the Rosenthal administration was coming to an end and a more professional era was on the horizon. Other criminal defense attorneys, most with a lot of experience in the courthouse gang, were not so optimistic.

We accepted Lykos’ promise of reform at face value. In fact, we wrote about the so-called “new era of reform” (“District Attorney Pat Lykos Continues New Era of Reform in Harris County,” April 5, 2009). While, we were glad to see some of the old guard gone, we were not exactly convinced that Lykos’ early prosecutor dismissals were indicators of reform as opposed to old fashion politics. We nonetheless decided to subscribe to a time-honored principle and “give credit where credit is due.”

But then disappointment happened on the road to “reform” that caused us to view Lykos’ “reform” claims with a jaundice eye. She announced with much fanfare in the local media, fulfilling a campaign promise, that the district attorney’s office would make “offense reports” available to criminal defense attorneys. During the previous administrations, a criminal defense attorney had been forced to meet with the prosecutor handling a given case, put on a smiley face of deference, and request permission to hand copy notes from the prosecutor’s file, including offense reports. It was an arduous, time-consuming process—not to mention a sophomoric one—that sustained a perpetual attitude of animosity between defense attorney and prosecutor. (more…)

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December 17, 2008

A DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICE IN NEED OF REFORM

Filed under: Houston Criminal Lawyer — Tags: DNA, Harris County, Naon McKewn Williams, reform, sexual assault — johntfloyd @ 6:05 pm

Ethical Lapses, Forensic Impropriety and Extreme Carelessness; Another Day at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center

By Houston Criminal Defense Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

In October 2002 two young boys were playing together in downtown Houston when they were approached by a stranger who offered them money in exchange for removing some trash. One of the boys, who was eight years of age at the time, was lured into a nearby vacant house and sexually molested by the stranger.

Based on information supplied by the boy’s mother, Houston police officer Lisa Clemmons arrested a neighborhood resident named Ricardo Rachell for the sexual assault. The two boys identified Rachell as the attacker. That identification at the outset should have raised a red flag. Rachell has a terrible facial disfigurement caused by a shotgun blast years earlier. The molested boy did not mention any facial disfigurement to his mother when he initially told her about the sexual assault on the day it happened.

And the boy knew Rachell from seeing him around the neighborhood. The facial disfigurement caused Rachell to drool and he usually had a towel wrapped around his neck to wipe away the drool. While the young victim thought Rachell was “scary,” he did not identify the disfigured man as his attacker until the day after the sexual assault and only after his mother had talked to him about Rachell.

Officer Clemmons apparently did not perceive the significance of the boy’s failure to finger Rachell on the day of the attack. But she did collect biological evidence—clothing and medical swabs—from both the victim and Rachell. However, Rachell’s DNA was not processed so that it could be compared to biological evidence collected from the victim. Had Rachell’s DNA been properly processed and tested, he would not have been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison in 2003.

In January 2008 Harris County Criminal District Court Judge Susan Brown issued a belated order that Rachell’s DNA be tested. In October the results of that testing disclosed unequivocally that Rachell was not the “stranger” who attack the boy. The wrongfully convicted man was released from custody on December 12, 2008 after six long years of protesting his innocence to anyone who would listen. (more…)

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December 14, 2008

THE CONFLICTING FACES OF CRIME

Filed under: Houston Criminal Lawyer — Tags: anti-crime, Harris County, Murder, Officer Abernethy, Ricardo Rachell, wrongfully accused — johntfloyd @ 12:32 pm

Slain Police Officer, Exonerated Convict

By: Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

The front page of the December 13, 2008 Houston Chronicle, in bold headlines, presented a stunning paradox: two tragic, conflicting faces of crime in Harris County. The first face was captured in the headline “A Touching Tribute to Slain Policeman.” The second face was captured by the headline “Freed by DNA to Life as an Innocent Man.” The two faces inevitably evoked a torrent of conflicting emotions in the average reader.

The slain police officer, Timothy Abernethy, was senselessly gunned down while protecting a crime-ridden neighborhood in northwest Houston. A well-respected law enforcement officer and a deeply loved father and husband, the 13-year police veteran was simply trying to protect and serve the community he loved when an ex-felon on parole reportedly shot him in the head at point-blank range in the dangerous Luxor apartment complex.

The cold blooded and senseless nature of Abernethy’s murder shocked and outraged Houston residents who have seen their unfair share of horrendous violence. Letters to the Chronicle editor about the Abernethy killing reflected the community demand for swift justice and absolute retribution for a killer who has a troubled history of violence and criminal behavior. Just hours before killing Abernethy the accused killer was trying to break into the apartment of an estranged girlfriend. This media revelation served only to fuel the community anger against the accused killer.

The man recently freed following DNA exoneration is Ricardo Rachell who was convicted six years ago for the sexual assault of an 8-year-old boy. Terribly disfigured by a shotgun blast to the face, Rachell had always vehemently claimed he was innocent during his six-year wrongful incarceration. He wrote letters to lawyers and judges pleading his case and protesting the 40-year sentence imposed on him but to no avail. (more…)