Another Wrongful Conviction in Houston

By TChris, Section Innocence Cases
Posted on Sat Dec 20, 2008 at 03:38:59 PM EST
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Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt insists his department bears no responsibility for Ricardo Rachell's wrongful arrest, conviction, and incarceration. When the police arrested Rachell for sexually assaulting a minor, they recovered physical evidence that could have been tested for DNA. The department's notoriously unreliable crime lab had been closed, so the evidence wasn't tested. Prosecutors didn't order DNA testing and nobody told the defense that the evidence existed.

While Rachell was in jail, the officers involved in his arrest investigated a string of similar assaults in their district. If that fact caused them any concern for Rachell's innocence, they did nothing about it.

[more ...]

Jurors sentenced Rachell to 40 years in prison in a case built largely on eyewitness testimony from the victim and one of his 8-year-old friends. More than five years later, DNA evidence — available but never tested before Rachell's trial — cleared him of any involvement in the attack. ...
Eventually, DNA evidence linked registered sex offender Andrew Wayne Hawthorne to at least one of those assaults, and he pleaded guilty in three cases. He is serving a 60-year prison sentence.

There's plenty of blame to distribute, but the Houston Police Department deserves a large slice.

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Another Wrongful Conviction in Houston | 6 comments (6 topical)

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Until we see this sort of thing as a crime (5.00 / 1) (#5)
by nellre on Sun Dec 21, 2008 at 12:51:10 PM EST

Until we see this sort of thing as a crime, and prosecute these hoodlums disguised as crime fighters, it will continue.

: You can say that again! (none / 0) (#6)
by JamesTX on Sun Dec 21, 2008 at 11:40:12 PM EST

They have absolutely nothing to lose by getting up tomorrow and doing the same thing. Psychologists call it "mismanagement of contingencies", meaning you can't expect any change in behavior if you don't manage the consequences of behavior in such a way that there is some reason for the behavior to change.

[ Parent ]

blame for conviction? (none / 0) (#1)
by diogenes on Sat Dec 20, 2008 at 04:01:15 PM EST

Blame the jury. Blame the prosecutors if evidence was really suppressed. The main police problem is the closing of an "unreliable" DNA lab; that's more often a problem in terms of getting convictions of real criminals that would otherwise walk free rather than freeing falsely convicted ones.

well, no diogenes. (none / 0) (#2)
by cpinva on Sat Dec 20, 2008 at 04:08:53 PM EST

the fact that a string of similar crimes occurred, after mr. rachell was arrested and incarcerated, awaiting trial, should have sent up red flags to the houston police dept. the lab, jury and prosecutor had nothing to do with that failure to connect the dots.

my bet though is that the houston police chief is a conservative, personal accountability kind of guy.

Sorry, but (none / 0) (#3)
by JamesTX on Sat Dec 20, 2008 at 05:50:00 PM EST

it is a little more sinister than the cited article reports. This was classical Texas railroading of a "scary looking" black man that nobody cared about. It was a disgusting slap in the Lady's face to begin with, so I wouldn't entertain these token arguments about how any of the officials involved have any ethics or moral standing, much less competence.

Mr. Rachell has a severely disfigured face from a previous accident. The victim and the witness never mentioned the face until police suggested it in a severely flawed (nay, criminally obstructionist) identification procedure. There was absolutely no evidence other than the 8 year-old victim's ID (the victim that didn't notice Rachell had half his face blown off from a shotgun wound). This whole thing, well, just sucks. This kind of thing is the pinnacle of Texas "justice" under conservatism gone mad. It makes me want to vomit. I am ashamed of my state today.

Don't even suggest anything positive about any official involved in this. This was rotten and hateful police misconduct, unethical and hateful prosecution, a spineless and/or hateful jury that doesn't deserve the honor of citizenship, and an evil court for letting it happen.

: "Texas Justice?" (none / 0) (#4)
by NYShooter on Sat Dec 20, 2008 at 07:33:36 PM EST

Try "American Justice."
Twice in my life, I've had the pleasure of being at the rceiving end of American Police Justice.
Once, In Las Vegas, looking in the phone book for a cheap hotel, I made the mistake of booking a place "in the wrong part of town." After checking in, I headed out for The Strip. I was stopped, almost immediately, by two LV Cops, who greeted me with their batons; a crack to my back, and one to the back of my knees, even before asking a question. After proving my innocence, I was let go with the comment, "a white guy should know better than to come into this area."
The other time, this time in New York, and not to belabor the point, was somewhat similar.
The hurtful part was not the physical abuse, but the complete assumption of guilt, once the accusation was made.

[ Parent ]