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Sunday November 24, 2024
HOUSTON (AP) — A jury on Tuesday began deliberating the fate of a former Houston police officer accused of being responsible for the 2019 deaths of a couple during a raid that prompted a probe which revealed systemic corruption problems within the police department’s narcotics unit.
Gerald Goines is charged with two counts of murder in the January 2019 deaths of Dennis Tuttle, 59, and his 58-year-old wife Rhogena Nicholas. Goines has pleaded not guilty.
The couple, along with their dog, were were fatally shot after officers burst into their home using a “no-knock†warrant that didn’t require them to announce themselves before entering.
Jurors could also convict Goines of a lesser charge of tampering with a governmental record over allegations he falsified the search warrant used to justify the raid of the couple’s home.
The jury deliberated for about three hours Tuesday afternoon before breaking for the day. Deliberations were set to resume Wednesday.
During closing arguments in a trial that began Sept. 9, prosecutors told jurors Goines, 59, fabricated a confidential informant and manipulated people in order to get a search warrant for the couple’s home that falsely portrayed them as dangerous drug dealers.
Prosecutor Keaton Forcht told jurors everything that happened in the home, including the couple’s deaths and the injuries to officers, “flowed directly†from the falsified search warrant and Goines’ lies. During the raid, four officers were shot and wounded, and a fifth was injured.
“The deaths of Rhogena Nicholas and Dennis Tuttle are a grave, grave injustice,†said Forcht, with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.
Goines attorneys admitted the ex-officer lied to get the search warrant but tried to minimize the impact of his false statements. They said Nicholas and Tuttle were responsible for their own deaths.
Tuttle and Nicholas “did not die because there was a bad warrant and officers came into their house†but because they failed to listen to officers’ commands and fired at them, putting the officers’ lives in danger, said George Secrest, one of Goines’ attorneys.
“You can hate Gerald … but he’s not guilty of murder,†Secrest said.
Nicole DeBorde, another of Goines’ attorneys, suggested to jurors that Tuttle’s history of psychiatric problems might have played a role in the shooting. She also suggested evidence did show the couple were armed and dangerous drug dealers.
But prosecutor Tanisha Manning told jurors Tuttle was a military veteran who had a long history of medical problems and that he had every right to fire his gun and defend his home from individuals who had burst through his front door.
Manning said prosecutors weren’t placing blame on the other officers in the house who didn’t know about the falsified search warrant and were justified in defending themselves.
“The only person responsible for that volley of bullets was Gerald Goines,†Manning said.
Investigators said they only found small amounts of marijuana and cocaine in the house.
During the trial, Jeff Wolf, a Texas ranger who investigated the shooting, testified officers fired first when they entered the home and shot the couple’s dog. Wolf said the gunfire and Nicholas screaming at officers likely resulted in Tuttle coming from his bedroom and opening fire at the officers.
Goines’ attorneys have said that officers had identified themselves before entering the home but Wolf testified the couple might never have heard this before gunfire erupted.
Goines’ attorneys argued during the trial that it was Tuttle and not officers who was the first to fire at another person.
An officer who took part in the raid and the judge who had approved the search warrant testified the raid would never have happened had they known Goines had lied to get the warrant.
If convicted of murder, Goines faces up to life in prison.
The probe into the drug raid also uncovered allegations of systemic corruption.
A dozen officers tied to the narcotics squad that carried out the raid, including Goines, were later indicted on other charges following a corruption probe. A judge in June dismissed charges against some of them.
Since the raid, prosecutors have reviewed thousands of cases handled by the narcotics unit.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has overturned at least 22 convictions linked to Goines, who also faces federal charges.
One of the other cases tied to Goines that remains under scrutiny is his 2004 drug arrest in Houston of George Floyd, whose 2020 death at the hands of a Minnesota police officer sparked a nationwide reckoning on racism in policing. A Texas board in 2022 declined a request that Floyd be granted a posthumous pardon for his drug conviction stemming from his arrest by Goines.
Federal civil rights lawsuits the families of Tuttle and Nicholas have filed against Goines and 12 other officers involved in the raid and the city of Houston are set to be tried in November.
AUSTIN (AP) -Â Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones ‘ Infowars media platform and its assets will be sold off piece by piece in auctions this fall to help pay the more than $1 billion he owes relatives of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, under an order expected to be approved by a federal judge.
HUNTSVILLE (AP) — A Texas man who had waived his right to appeal his death sentence received a lethal injection Tuesday evening for killing his 3-month-old son more than 16 years ago, one of five executions scheduled within a week’s time in the U.S.
Travis Mullis, 38, was pronounced dead at 7:01 p.m. CDT following the injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was condemned for stomping to death his son Alijah in January 2008.
“I’d like to thank everyone … that accepted me for the man I became during my best and worst moments,†Mullis, while strapped to the death chamber gurney, said after his spiritual adviser offered a brief prayer over him.
He also thanked prison officials and staff for “changes made across the system†that allowed “even the men on death row to show it is possible to be rehabilitated and not deemed a threat and not the men we were when we came into this system.â€
He added that while he “took the legal steps to expedite to include assisted suicide, I don’t regret this decision, to legally expedite this process. … I do regret the decision to take the life of my son.†He apologized to his son’s mother, to her family and said he had no ill will toward anyone involved in the punishment.
“It was my decision that put me here,†he said.
The execution was delayed about 20 minutes while technicians worked to find a suitable vein. One needle carrying the lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital was inserted in his right arm, the usual procedure. A second needle, rather than entering his left arm, was inserted in his left foot.
He closed his eyes as the drug began taking effect and took seven barely audible breaths before his breathing abruptly stopped. He was pronounced dead 20 minutes late
Mullis was the fourth inmate put to death this year in Texas, the nation’s busiest capital punishment state. Another execution was carried out Tuesday evening in Missouri, and executions were also scheduled to take place Thursday in Oklahoma and Alabama. South Carolina conducted an execution Friday.
Authorities said Mullis, then 21 and living in Brazoria County, drove to nearby Galveston with his son after fighting with his girlfriend. Mullis parked his car and sexually assaulted his son. After the infant began to cry uncontrollably, Mullis began strangling the child before taking him out of the car and stomping on his head, according to authorities.
The infant’s body was later found on the roadside. Mullis fled the state but was later arrested after surrendering to police in Philadelphia.
Mullis’ execution proceeded after one of his attorneys, Shawn Nolan, said Tuesday afternoon that he planned no late appeals in a bid to spare the inmate’s life. Nolan also said in a statement that Texas would be executing a “redeemed man†who has always accepted responsibility for committing “an awful crime.â€
In a letter submitted in February to U.S. District Judge George Hanks in Houston, Mullis wrote that he had no desire to challenge his case any further. Mullis has previously taken responsibility for his son’s death and has said “his punishment fit the crime.â€
At Mullis’ trial, prosecutors said Mullis was a “monster†who manipulated people, was deceitful and refused the medical and psychiatric help he had been offered.
Since his conviction in 2011, Mullis has long been at odds with his various attorneys over whether to appeal his case. At times, Mullis had asked that his appeals be waived, only to later change his mind.
The U.S. Supreme Court has prohibited the application of the death penalty for the intellectually disabled, but not for people with serious mental illness.
If the scheduled executions in Alabama and Oklahoma are carried out as planned, it will mark the first time in more than 20 years — since July 2003 — that five were held in seven days, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, which takes no position on capital punishment but has criticized the way states carry out executions.
The first took place Friday when South Carolina put inmate Freddie Owens to death. Also Tuesday, Marcellus Williams was executed in Missouri. On Thursday, executions are scheduled for Alan Miller in Alabama and Emmanuel Littlejohn in Oklahoma.
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Donald Trump has long pledged to deport millions of people, but he’s bringing more specifics to his current bid for the White House: invoking wartime powers, relying on like-minded governors and using the military.
Trump’s record as president shows a vast gulf between his ambitions and the legal, fiscal and political realities of mass deportations of people in the United States illegally — 11 million in January 2022, by the Homeland Security Department’s latest estimate. Former President Barack Obama carried out 432,000 deportations in 2013, the highest annual total since records were kept.
Deportations under Trump never topped 350,000. But he and his chief immigration policy architect, Stephen Miller, have offered clues in interviews and rallies of taking a different approach if they are returned to power in November. They could benefit from lessons learned during their of four years in office and, potentially, from more Trump-appointed judges.
“What Trump seems to be contemplating is potentially lawful,†said Joseph Nunn, counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s School of Law. “There might not be a lot of legal barriers. It is going to be logistically extraordinarily complicated and difficult. The military is not going to like doing it and they are going to drag their feet as much as they can, but it is possible, so it should be taken seriously.â€
The Trump campaign, asked how his pledge would be carried out, said Trump would begin the largest deportation program in U.S. history, without elaborating in detail. Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman, said Trump “would marshal every federal and state power necessary to institute the largest deportation operation of illegal criminals, drug dealers, and human traffickers.”
Trump has said he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law that allows the president to deport any noncitizen from a country that the U.S. is at war with.
Texas Gov, Greg Abbott has advanced a theory that illegal immigration amounts to an invasion to justify state enforcement measures, so far without success, but legal scholars say judges may be reluctant to second-guess what a president considers a foreign aggression.
The sweeping Alien Enemies Act authority may sidestep a law that bans the military from civilian law enforcement.
Trump has said he would focus on deploying the National Guard, whose troops can be activated on orders of a governor. Miller says troops under sympathetic Republican governors would send troops to nearby states that refuse to participate.
“The Alabama National Guard is going to arrest illegal aliens in Alabama and the Virginia National Guard in Virginia. And if you’re going to go into an unfriendly state like Maryland, well, there would just be Virginia doing the arrest in Maryland, right, very close, very nearby,†Miller said last year on “The Charlie Kirk Show.â€
The military has been peripherally involved at the border since President George W. Bush’s administration with activities that are not deemed to be law enforcement, such as surveillance, vehicle maintenance and installing concertina wire.
Nunn, of New York University’s Brennan Center, said Trump may look to 2020, when he ordered the National Guard to disperse peaceful Black Lives Matter protests near the White House, despite the mayor’s opposition. Trump did so without invoking the 18th-century war powers law, but the District of Columbia’s federal status gives the president outsized authority to act.
Trump may also contend with rights afforded under immigration law and court rulings that took shape after 1798, including a right to seek asylum that became law in 1980. Under a 2001 Supreme Court ruling, people in the country illegally can’t be detained indefinitely if there is no reasonable chance their countries will take them back. Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and others are either slow to accept their citizens or refuse.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is funded by Congress for 41,500 detention beds this year, raising questions about where Trump would house people before they board deportation flights and how long they could hold them if countries refuse to take them back. Miller floated the idea of “large-scale staging grounds near the border, most likely in Texas.â€
ICE officers are painstakingly deliberate, researching backgrounds of their targets and prioritizing people with criminal convictions. They try to capture suspects outside their homes because they generally work without court warrants and people don’t have to let them inside.
A single arrest may require hours of surveillance and research, a job that one ICE official likened to watching paint dry.
“On practical level, it will be nearly impossible for (Trump) to do the things he’s talking about, even if could bring in the military,†said John Sandweg, a senior Homeland Security Department official in the Obama administration.
Obama’s deportation numbers were made possible by local police who turned people over to ICE, but many state and local governments have since introduced limits on cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Obama’s presidency also predated a surge of asylum-seekers at the border, which drained limited resources of the Trump and Biden administrations.
While many support Trump’s plans, mass deportation could tear apart families, exacerbate labor shortages and uproot people with deep ties to their communities. Pew Research Center estimates 70% of households with at least one person in the United States illegally also have someone in the country legally.
Military leaders are likely to resist because it would undercut other priorities and damage morale, Nunn said.
“The military is going see this and say this is not the kind of duty that soldiers signed up for,” he said. “This is getting the military involved in domestic politics in a way the military doesn’t like to do.â€
Adam Goodman, associate professor of history and Latin American studies at the University of Illinois, Chicago, who has written about deportations, said a threat of a mass expulsion can have a serious impact even if it isn’t carried out. He thinks it is highly unlikely that Trump can do what he promises but it can strike fear in immigrant communities.
In June 2019, Trump announced ICE would “begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens” the following week. A month later, the agency said it targeted about 2,100 people, resulting in 35 arrests, indicating the president’s plans fell far short but only after they generated widespread concern in immigrant communities.
Trump himself acknowledged the political perils during an interview Sunday with journalist Sharyl Attkisson. “You put one wrong person onto a bus or onto an airplane and your radical left lunatics will try and make it sound like it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened,” Trump said, before repeating his pledge: “But we’re getting the criminals out. And we’re going to do that fast.â€
VAN ZANDT COUNTY — A 62-year-old woman reported missing September 19 has been found dead. According to our news partner KETK, the Van Zandt County Sheriff’s Office said that Lisa Adams was found dead during a search performed by law enforcement on Saturday. According to the sheriff’s office, the Adams’ body was found in a field west of Canton near Highway 243. Justice of the Peace, Don Ashlock, has ordered an autopsy to determine how Adams died.
Officials said she was reported missing on Thursday, Sept. 19 but was last seen in the area of Canton on Sept. 12. Read the rest of this entry »
RUSK COUNTY — A woman was arrested on Saturday after deputies found her to be the passenger of a 12-year-old behind the wheel during a traffic stop, the Rusk County Sheriff’s Office said. According to the sheriff’s office and our news partner KETK, around 11 p.m. deputies stopped a vehicle on County Road 201 for reckless driving.
“During the traffic investigation a 12-year-old juvenile was found to be operating the motor vehicle with an adult later identified as Holly Riehl, 39 of Henderson, seated in the front passenger seat,†officials said.
The child was found on top of a cushion and jacket to better see over the vehicle’s steering wheel, the sheriff’s office said. The sheriff’s office said Riehl was found in possession of an open alcohol container and deputies observed as she attempted to discard a plastic bag of cocaine. Rusk County Child Protective Services was called and the child was released at the scene to a family member, the sheriff’s office said. Read the rest of this entry »
QUTIMAN – Former Quitman Police Department captain Terry Bevill won a $21.35 million verdict in his wrongful termination lawsuit against the City of Quitman on Thursday. According to our news partner KETK, a press release from Bevill’s representatives shows Bevill filed the suit against four elected officials, David Dobbs, who served as Mayor of Quitman in 2017, Tom Castloo, the former Wood County Sheriff, Jim Wheeler, former district attorney and Jeff Fletcher, a former state district court judge for Wood County.
Bevill’s lawsuit alleged he was wrongfully fired in 2017 for submitting an affidavit stating that he believed Wood County couldn’t be a fair place to have the trial of David McGee, a Wood County jail administrator who was allegedly arrested for trying to get an inmate, who he was reportedly sexually involved with, released by tampering with government records. Read the rest of this entry »
Update: Henderson ISD calls student’s previous diagnosis of bacterial meningitis false alarm. In a Facebook post Monday, HISD said further investigation by state health authorities and additional lab results determined the student, who is recovering, does not have bacterial meningitis.
HENDERSON — Henderson Independent School District officials announced that a student contracted bacterial meningitis and families should take proactive measures to ensure safety. According to our news partner KETK, the district said they were notified that a high school student has a confirmed case of bacterial meningitis, an infection that affects the brain and spinal cord which can be life-threatening. Henderson ISD is asking families to join in their efforts to ensure safety and health of all students.
Bacterial meningitis spreads though close contact such as sneezing, coughing and drink sharing, the district said. Early symptoms include high fever, stiff neck, confusion, sensitivity to light, severe headache and nausea. Read the rest of this entry »
FORT BLISS – The U.S. Army soldier who was temporarily detained by North Korea last year after running across the Demilitarized Zone was sentenced to 12 months’ confinement after pleading guilty Friday to desertion and four other charges, including assaulting an officer.
According to Fox News, the military court judge at Fort Bliss, Texas, reportedly told King that without the plea he could serve up to 20 years following his admission of guilt.
King was declared a free man on Friday based on the 338 days he had already served awaiting trial and good behavior. He also received a dishonorable discharge from the United States Army.
“With time already served and credit for good behavior, Travis [is] now free and will return home,” his attorney, Franklin D. Rosenblatt, told Fox News.
Nine other offenses that King faced, including possession of sexual images of a child, were withdrawn and dismissed under the terms of a plea agreement he reached, according to The Associated Press.
King bolted across the heavily fortified border from South Korea in July 2023 and became the first American detained in North Korea in nearly five years.
His run into North Korea came soon after he was released from a South Korean prison where he had served nearly two months on assault charges.
About a week after his release from the prison, military officers took him to the airport so he could return to Fort Bliss to face disciplinary action. He was escorted as far as customs, but instead of getting on the plane, he joined a civilian tour of the Korean border village of Panmunjom.
He then ran across the border, which is lined with guards and often crowded with tourists.
King ultimately was detained by North Korea, but after about two months, Pyongyang abruptly announced that it would expel him. On Sept. 28, he was flown back to Texas, and has been in custody there.
King spent a total of 71 days in North Korean custody.
NACOGDOCHES COUNTY – A Tennessee man who led Nacogdoches County Sheriff’s Office deputies in a multi-county pursuit Tuesday morning was found with a firearm and marijuana. According to the sheriff’s office and our news partner KETK, a deputy attempted to pull over a speeding 2020 Toyota at around 7:15 a.m. on US 259 near Central Heights school zone. The driver identified as 41-year-old Christopher Michael Chaney, of Ashland City, Tennessee, fled and reached speeds of 120 mph, the sheriff’s office said.
Nacogdoches Police Department officers and Texas Department of Public Safety troopers reportedly assisted in the pursuit as Chaney continued to flee toward Garrison on U.S. 59. Read the rest of this entry »
SMITH COUNTY — Nearly a decade after her son was killed, a Tyler Mother is still looking for answers. For eight years, Mary Moore, mother of Steven Ray Smith who was killed in September of 2016, has been searching and hoping for answers. “I can’t sleep at night because I miss him,†Moore said. “It’s the worst thing that a mother can feel, like a black hole in your heart.â€
According to our news partner KETK, in 2016 Aisha McGee and Steven Smith were shot to death outside of a now closed club in northwest Tyler. Tyler police officer Andy Erbaugh served as one of the responding detectives on the case. “On September 18th, 2016, at around 2:44 in the morning,†Erbaugh said. “No witnesses except for one stayed on scene and we found that two people had been shot and killed.â€
He said unfortunately they still don’t have a suspect, leaving the families lost for answers. Read the rest of this entry »