TALK WITH wrongfully convicted DANIEL HOLTZCLAW during a FACEBOOK LIVE EVENT this Saturday, August 10th, at 9 a.m. CT, hosted by his sister Jenny Holtzclaw on her Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/jennifer.holtzclaw
Daniel will be calling Jenny from prison on speaker phone at 9 a.m. CT. He will answer your questions that you type in the comments during the Event. Jenny will read your questions and comments for Daniel and then you can hear him reply. This is a chance for you to hear Daniel and offer him support and encouragement as he speaks from prison about his wrongful conviction.
The newest update in Daniel’s fight to regain his freedom is that his case is now entering the next phase of legal filings because THE OKLAHOMA COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS UNJUSTLY DENIED DANIEL’S APPEAL on August 1, 2019.
This dangerous ruling should worry all Oklahomans and everyone in the U.S.
It means that in Oklahoma and our nation, innocent people such as Daniel can be convicted and imprisoned in trials where, with the Court’s sanction and blessing, the prosecution misrepresents DNA evidence as deriving from vaginal fluid when none was found or observed; the defense counsel entirely misses errors by the State’s forensic analyst that made the DNA evidence appear incriminating when it is explained by innocent DNA transfer; a mob shouts “give him life!” and “racist jury!” outside the courthouse within hearing of the jurors; police detectives solicited allegations specifically from at-risk African-American women, encouraging them to make allegations; accusers’ descriptions of the suspect don’t match you in the slightest; and police detectives fail to show accusers photo lineups of suspects because detectives are afraid the accusers won’t pick you!
Daniel’s sister JENNY HOLTZCLAW gave a moving and informative speech at a press conference about the Court’s biased and unjustified denial of Daniel’s appeal on August 1, 2019:
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JENNY HOLTZCLAW’s speech about the Court’s denial of Daniel’s appeal:
Our brother and son Daniel Holtzclaw wore his police badge proudly and served honorably every day of his three years on the job. He is the son of police officers and a man of God. Daniel respects women and people of all races.
We want Oklahoma and the world to know that Daniel is innocent of each and every one of the false allegations against him--and we believe that all of the powerful people directly involved in his wrongful conviction know it. We will continue our quest to hold them accountable and free Daniel.
Justice took a brutal blow today with the court’s rejection of Daniel’s criminal appeal. There’s no doubt about that. But we will fight for Daniel, for reform of the criminal justice system, and reform of the Oklahoma City police department and crime lab, so that Daniel and no other innocent person will suffer imprisonment for crimes they did not commit.
We ask the media and the public to research Daniel's case and report on it accurately and fairly so that justice prevails.
Please do not believe the prosecution's biased claims. In wrongful conviction after wrongful conviction, media and the public are misled by the prosecution's narrative, and this occurred in Daniel's case as well.
Please look at how Daniel's police department, the Oklahoma City Police Department, conducted its biased investigation, seeking out accusers and leading them to make allegations that the police pinned on Daniel.
A police lieutenant stated the reason investigators didn't show an accuser a photo lineup was (quote) "because we were AFRAID she might not pick Holtzclaw."
Detectives prejudged Daniel as guilty after hearing the unsubstantiated allegations of a single accuser, who is a lead plaintiff suing the city in a high-dollar federal civil lawsuit.
Detectives concluded after a single, two-hour interrogation of Daniel, without any scientific or professional corroboration, that he was a “sociopath” and “serial rapist” despite passing his police academy psychological evaluations and showing zero history or signs of sociopathic, misogynist, predatory, or violent behavior.
Detectives persisted in the belief that they were dealing with a "sociopath" and "serial rapist" despite coming up empty in an extensive search for any witness dating back to Daniel's college and high school days who would corroborate the detectives' conclusion.
Detectives hunted for accusers based on an arbitrary “victim” profile, ungrounded in science or sound investigative principles, and entirely fabricated, and then concluded, without justification, that the targets were African American women with significant criminal histories including prostitution or drug use, and then narrowed the focus of the investigation to this demographic;
Detectives tipped off accusers that they were searching for a “bad guy” with “lots of victims” and that they were “possibly sexually assaulted by an Oklahoma City police officer.”
Not only did detectives ignore troubling discrepancies by unreliable accusers who described their assailant as “black” and short, “dark-skinned,” or of “dark color,” but they also failed to follow up on other potential suspects within the police department who matched that description.
The public needs to know that Daniel received the most number of years for the accuser who said the officer that raped her was “Short & Black”. Daniel is neither short or black.
It’s mind-blogging for us to read that the Court of Criminal Appeals believes jurors came to a reasonable decision on that charge and all the others, which were unduly influenced by the lone piece of indirect DNA evidence tied to a single accuser.
Detectives and prosecutors piled together unreliable, non-credible accusers in the absence of eyewitness and forensic corroboration and without expert linkage analysis. The failure of trial lawyer Scott Adams to object to the joinder of all the cases doomed Daniel’s case. The court failed to comprehend how the pile-on was purposely designed to lump together a bunch of allegations solicited by police and unsupported by any forensic evidence or corroborating witnesses.
Detectives mishandled crucial evidence when one lead detective inserted his bare hand into an evidence bag—into which Daniel’s uniform pants and belt were packaged. As a result, cross-contamination may have caused DNA to transfer to the fly of the uniform pants.
We especially urge the public and media to learn about innocent DNA transfer, which is a scientifically studied, known, and PROVEN phenomenon accepted by scientists the world over and acknowledged by more and more informed judges and lawyers across America. Read the "REPORT ON SCIENTIFIC ISSUES IN THE CASE OF OKLAHOMA V. DANIEL K. HOLTZCLAW BY AN INTERNATIONAL PANEL OF FORENSIC EXPERTS," including world-renowned Dr. Peter Gill, available at www.HoltzclawDNAreport.com. When you ignore science, you, too, may find yourself wrongfully convicted because of a tiny quantity of someone's DNA that transferred innocently onto your clothing or other evidence item.
I want to talk in more detail about the DNA evidence and the Sixth Amendment, which guarantees every criminal defendant the right to effective counsel -- in other words, a competent attorney mounting a competent defense.
More than two years ago, on February 1, 2017, Daniel filed his appeal of his convictions for alleged sexual assaults that his police department, succumbing to tunnel vision, pinned on him despite numerous problems with the evidence.
Daniel's appellate attorneys, James Lockard and Michael Morehead, requested the Court to grant an Evidentiary Hearing on one of the main reasons that Daniel's trial was unfair: Daniel's trial attorney failed to challenge the prosecution's multiple misrepresentations of the trial's most crucial evidence, a minute quantity of DNA on the fly of Daniel's uniform pants.
In a sworn, 10-page affidavit, highly regarded forensic biologist and DNA expert Dr. Michael Spence exposed the state’s “faulty and scientifically unsound presentation of the DNA evidence.”
We are deeply disappointed that the Court did not grant an evidentiary hearing and went straight to denying Daniel's appeal. This means the Court did not reach a fair decision because it refused to listen to the evidence about the severity of the prosecution's DNA analysis errors and Daniel's trial attorney's failure to challenge them.
The prosecution's mischaracterization of the DNA made it appear to have derived from vaginal fluid even though no evidence of body fluid was detected and the DNA was best explained by innocent DNA transfer via Daniel's hands to his uniform pants after pat-searches or other non-intimate contact.
The prosecutor told the jury untruthfully that vaginal fluid had transferred the DNA. This false claim led to guilty verdicts by misleading the jury. A juror admitted in a media interview after the trial that he believed there was vaginal fluid, saying, "Well, I mean, I'm not a DNA expert. They told us it was DNA from the vaginal fluid from a 17-year-old."
The State's DNA analysis errors, prosecutorial misconduct, and ineffective assistance of trial counsel alone warranted a new, FAIR trial for Daniel.
The district court judge and prosecution failed to protect Daniel Holtzclaw’s constitutional right to a fair trial, which was conducted while a circus mob atmosphere and intimidating protests occurred inside and outside the courtroom.
We are stunned that the Court of Criminal Appeals so flippantly dismissed the impact that out-of-control protesters shouting “Give him life” and “Racist cop” and “Racist jury” had on Daniel’s constitutionally protected right to a fair trial.
The city even approved a protest permit for activists outside the courtroom and the trial judge, who knew about it, refused to change the venue as courtroom infiltrators took photos of jurors.
The trial court judge, Oklahoma Attorney General’s office, Oklahoma County District Attorney’s office, an Oklahoma City government attorney, and top police officials, including the crime lab supervisor all met in secret in June 2017 during secret hearings that Daniel and his attorneys were banned from attending. Following the secret hearings, local TV stations reported that the emails of the crime lab analyst at the center of the forensic junk science in Daniel’s case were destroyed.
Only a fraction have been released. Unsealed court documents revealed that the crime lab analyst's alleged “personnel files” were the focus of the secret hearings. But the transcripts of those hearings are still hidden from the public and from trained and informed scientists who are best equipped to assess information related to her DNA analysis and testimony.
We are alarmed that the Court of Criminal Appeals treated this sham, secretive process as nothing more than a footnote in its ruling when it should be front and center. If it can happen to Daniel, it can happen to anyone.
This cannot stand in Oklahoma or in America.
Daniel and our family want to thank all the people...lawyers, scientists, journalists, friends, and supporters all over the world...who are fighting for Daniel.
Looking to the future, we are beyond thankful to attorney Kathleen Zellner & Associates who have taken up Daniel's case and are advocating for him as his attorneys. Kathleen Zellner never gives up, and neither will we. Truth will win out.
We will never give up believing that Oklahomans care about justice. We will fight for Daniel until he is free, and we ask you to join us for Daniel's sake, for your own safety, and for justice.
Please continue to follow the case while we continue to fight for Daniel’s FREEDOM. You can follow me on my Facebook page and at www.FreeDanielHoltzclaw.com.
You can write to Daniel at PO Box 1193, Poway CA 92074.
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Part of Jenny Holtzclaw’s speech is available online at the following Oklahoma City News 9 article, “Holtzclaw Family Devastated After Former OKC Police Officer's Appeal Is Denied”:
Daniel Holtzclaw thanks all of you for your support and for following his case as it continues into the next legal steps, called “post-conviction,” now that the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals unfairly denied Daniel’s appeal. As Jenny stated, “Justice took a brutal blow today with the court’s rejection of Daniel’s criminal appeal.”
The road to exoneration is often long, but -- like the many other innocent people who have fought for their freedom -- Daniel is not giving up! Neither are we. We hope you will participate in the FACEBOOK LIVE EVENT with DANIEL on Saturday, August 10th, at 9 a.m. CT at his sister Jenny Holtzclaw’s Facebook Page. By helping Daniel win in the “Court of Public Opinion,” we can help Daniel win in the court of law!