Houston Chronicle by Keri Blakinger Sep. 6, 2019
Judge issues rare monetary sanction against Harris County DA after 8-month delay in turning over evidence
The Harris County District Attorney’s Office was ordered to pay a rare sanction after a judge found that prosecutors acted in bad faith when they took eight months to turn over evidence that could have helped the defense in a misdemeanor drunken driving case.
Even though the accused man’s attorneys asked for the information — records showing the disciplinary history of a La Porte police officer involved in the arrest — in October, prosecutors still hadn’t turned over the material by trial’s scheduled start in July. When a judge finally ordered them to, the state’s attorneys insisted on a hearing to determine if they could turn over the information under seal.
“Withholding was inexcusable and then the judge told them to turn it over and they said, ‘No, not unless you give us a protective order,’†said defense attorney Jordan Lewis. “All of it just speaks to the very clear attitude that officers are above the law.â€
The decision to levy a sanction — $500 due this month — against prosecutors is so uncommon that multiple attorneys and former judges said they’d never heard of it happening before. A spokesman for the district attorney’s office called into question whether jurists are allowed to impose sanctions over withheld evidence, saying Judge Andrew Wright instead should have just allowed the defense more time to prepare for trial once they got the materials requested.
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