Gerald Goines, the mendacious former Houston narcotics officer who had a habit of framing drug suspects, received two concurrent 60-year prison sentences on Tuesday for causing the deaths of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas, who were killed during a 2019 raid that Goines instigated by falsely accusing them of selling heroin. Since Goines is 60 years old and won't be eligible for parole until he serves half of his prison term, the penalty probably amounts to a life sentence.
"This is historic because we believe this is the first-ever murder conviction of a Houston-area law enforcement officer [for a crime] committed while in uniform," said Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg. The reason such verdicts have been so hard to obtain, she explained, is that "people want to believe in the police—that's who we're trained to trust from the time we're little."
