Austin PD says it ‘restricts’ some evidence from DA, defense

AUSTIN – The Austin American-Statesman says the Austin Police Department says it regularly “restricts” various pieces of evidence, such as body-worn camera footage, from the Travis County district attorney’s office and defense lawyers — a possible violation of state law. The Police Department “does not believe it has violated any rules of evidence handling” laws, a spokesperson told the American-Statesman. A joint statement from the department and the district attorney’s office said police give “thorough access to all evidence” in cases and that changes to “business processes” and “technology” in recent months at their offices “led to complications related to the sharing of evidence” that both offices are working to address. The revelation came in a tense pretrial hearing Friday afternoon in Travis County’s 460th Criminal District Court for a murder trial that was expected to begin Monday. In the hearing, state prosecutors said they had discovered that body-worn camera footage of officers who responded to the scene had not been released to them and therefore wasn’t given to defense lawyers.

The evidence in question pertained to the body-worn camera footage of 21 officers who responded to a shooting that killed one person in downtown Austin on March 14, 2021. Police later arrested 25-year-old Adriean Benn and charged him with the murder of Jorian Donte Hardeway. Benn is represented by the Vazquez Law Firm, which maintains that he is innocent. Travis County Criminal Court Judge Selena Alvarenga pushed the trial’s start date to October in light of the development. Alvarenga suppressed the evidence from the state, meaning that prosecutors cannot use evidence from the 21 videos in their arguments. Alvarenga also ordered the Police Department to stand before the court Wednesday to answer why the evidence was withheld. “I want to hear from someone from APD about why evidence in a murder trial is restricted,” Alvarenga said. “I want to know why any evidence is being restricted. Is that a policy?” The Police Department acknowledged the restriction of evidence in a series of statements to the American-Statesman, the latter portion of which appeared to backtrack or downplay the department’s initial response to the Statesman’s questions. Contrary to what was said in court, the Police Department initially said the district attorney’s office did have access to those videos, according to police spokesperson Anna Sabana’s written response to emailed questions sent by the Statesman. However, Sabana said the department does restrict videos from prosecutors and defense lawyers, including these 21 videos.