In Dallas, a massive—and systemic—error on the part of the Dallas Police Department has thrown wrenches into multiple high-profile trials, including that of Nina Marano, accused of the murder of Marisela Botella Valadez, a young woman visiting the city from Seattle, in October 2020.
Marano’s trial had been set for January, but it was postponed when it was discovered a DPD detective had failed to turn over hundreds of pieces of video evidence before trial. The detective had improperly saved the pieces of evidence, causing nearly 20 files to be permanently deleted and many more to be lost in the ether. Now, the case is once again stalled after a visiting judge last week removed Judge Amber Givens, who presides over the court, after she criticized prosecutors for failing to notice the evidence was not turned over to defense attorneys.
In November, the Dallas Police took an unusual step: They performed a self-audit, and the results were shocking. Nearly 90,000 pieces of digital evidence—including body cam footage and crime scene photos—had been improperly stored on their server since 2016. This means officers and prosecutors may not have been aware that they had evidence pertaining to a particular case, and if they did, the evidence would have been nearly impossible to find. As of last month, more than 50,000 pieces remained uncategorized, as police continue to suss out the extent of the damage.
But some of the damage is already clear: The Dallas Morning News reported earlier this month that police had identified 13 homicide cases where evidence had been deleted—and this was likely only the beginning, as police had only reviewed about 100 of the 450 pending murder cases as of that report.
In Texas, prosecutors are required to turn over their evidence to the defense. But for years, there was a huge loophole: Police weren’t required by law to guarantee they’d given all their evidence to the prosecutors. Because of this, potentially exonerating evidence was able to sit in evidence lockers or police file boxes for years while innocent people sat in prison. That changed in 2021, when the Richard Miles Act—named for the Dallas man who spent nearly 15 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit—became the law of the land.
Two police reports long hidden by the department pointed toward other suspects, including one who had allegedly confessed to the crime.
Miles was convicted of murder in 1995 after two men were shot in their car at a gas station in the early morning hours of May 16, 1994. The passenger, Deandre Williams, died, and an eyewitness identified Miles as the shooter. That witness later admitted he was encouraged by the police to positively ID Miles, and the rest of the eyewitnesses gave accounts that would have excluded Miles altogether.
Once the police had Miles in custody, they did little to pursue other leads. The work they did do, however, actually yielded the evidence that would later exonerate Miles. Two police reports long hidden by the department pointed toward other suspects, including one who had allegedly confessed to the crime.
In 2009, Miles was released from prison. In 2012, he was officially exonerated and was paid by the state for his wrongful conviction. Miles’ experience illustrates how dire the consequences can be when police don’t reveal everything they know. It can cost innocent people their freedom—but not all cases with withheld evidence turn out like Miles’.
The Texas Observer spoke with Cheryl Wattley, the lawyer who helped exonerate Miles, about Texas’ track record with mismanaged evidence, the snafu in Dallas, and how the state could avoid more wrongful convictions.
Richard Miles’ case is an example of a successful outcome based on the belated discovery of withheld evidence. How common are these types of outcomes?
Part of the issue when we start talking about withheld information is the classic question: How do you know that which you did not get? In order for there to be any assessment of the impact of withheld information, you have to somehow have been able to discover the existence of that information. If it’s never discovered, then there is no spotlight on it, and we don’t know what the potential impact can be. When we look and see cases that have been reversed or convictions thrown out or a writ of habeas corpus granted because of failure to turn over information, there had to be an ultimate discovery. And that really goes back to how we make that ultimate discovery.
There’s an American Bar Association [ABA] rule for prosecutors that says any time, even after a conviction, that a prosecutor becomes aware of information that is potentially exculpatory or would have helped with the impeachment of a witness, the prosecutor is under an obligation to turn that over to the judge and defense counsel.
To clarify, that’s a professional obligation, not a law?
Correct. In this case, the ABA model has not been adopted by the state of Texas as part of our law. So there is no legal obligation post-conviction for a prosecutor to make known newly discovered information, even when it could be relevant to a wrongful conviction.
Can you explain why the Richard Miles Act is significant? How does it challenge the current status quo?
It goes beyond the district attorney’s offices—it goes to law enforcement officers. In Richard’s case, his homicide file with the Dallas Police Department included memorandums that identify other potential suspects, actual perpetrators of the murder. Those memorandums were not turned over to the DA and therefore were not turned over to Richard and his trial counsel. The Richard Miles Act seeks to correct that circumstance. Had that been in place, Richard wouldn’t have lost those years of his life because those memorandums would have been turned over at the time of this trial.
So now that this law is in effect, it plugs that hole that existed in Richard’s case.
But keep in mind—the new law is dealing with all the activities that go up to trial. What happens after the conviction when, five years later, a prosecutor gets new information? Say the real murderer now gives a confession. There’s no obligation for the prosecutor to make that confession known in Texas.
Does the situation in Dallas—with thousands of pieces of missing or deleted digital evidence—seem like an anomalous situation? Or does it point to a larger problem with the way we think about and handle evidence in Texas? After all, this isn’t the first time Dallas has come under fire for evidence issues.
It certainly sets off alarms. I’m very concerned about any efforts to kind of minimize the potential impact. My analogy would be: Let’s look at all of the times in sports events when we want multiple camera angles to discern what actually happened. The idea that, well, we have other tapes or other video of that event, so this [deleted or missing] one is not necessary, I don’t think is necessarily a rational explanation. We never know what different angles, what different perspectives, what different scenarios are captured by various cameras. To categorically say, well, we have other videos of the incident, to say that this is not a problem—I think it’s manifestly unfair to defend it.
In Dallas, police became aware of the extent of the missing evidence after a self-audit. If we’re thinking of ways to address evidence mismanagement, is it reasonable to think all Texas departments should undertake similar audits?
I do think that’s reasonable. Clearly, there needs to be some mechanism whereby defendants and the community can be assured of the integrity of the evidence that’s being taken to a court.
Everyone—every individual and entity—that is involved in our criminal justice system has a duty to use its utmost and best efforts to get it right every time. Our sense of integrity requires that it’s only the person who actually committed the offense who goes through the criminal justice system. The self-audit is wonderful and it is to be commended and replicated and improved upon. At every step of the way in this criminal justice system, we have to get it right.
