Three years after Austin police arrested him on a felony drunken driving cost, Harold Mitchell sat in a Travis County courtroom July 19 as the primary particular person to go on trial because the begin of the pandemic.
On the protection desk carrying a black masks and yellow plaid shirt, he posted a Fb selfie: “I’m taking this s— to trial.”
Within the 36 months that he awaited that day, the Black 39-year-old Austin father of three scraped collectively $7,000 for an legal professional with loans from household and mates.
Alongside the way in which, he rejected plea offers: Two years in the past, he mentioned no to a felony conviction that might have left him on probation for a few years. Simply earlier than trial, he rejected a misdemeanor conviction with no jail time.
Then on the second day of testimony, simply earlier than prosecutors referred to as a star witness within the case that would have despatched Mitchell to jail for 2 years, they requested for a short recess to fulfill with the witness. When prosecutors returned to the courtroom, as a substitute of calling her to the stand, they requested state District Decide Brenda Kennedy if they might method the bench.
They informed Kennedy that their case had a elementary flaw — one which may have simply been discovered earlier than the trial began with a cellphone name — and that their case was useless.
Mitchell’s ordeal ended with a middle-of-trial dismissal attributable to inadequate proof, an apology to the 12 jurors from prosecutors who admitted they couldn’t show their case and a scolding from Kennedy, who mentioned the case had been a waste of “colossal time going by way of the gyrations” for the courtroom workers, jurors, and most significantly, Mitchell.
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“I’ve vented in probably the most respectable method that I can with out utilizing curse phrases,” Kennedy mentioned. “It is a scenario the place you converse together with your witnesses earlier than you get up to now.”
The case is a snapshot into how missteps within the legal justice system can have lasting repercussions to defendants in probably the most critical circumstances — and in additional routine ones like Mitchell’s.
Together with shedding jobs from potential purchasers after he believes they found his case in background checks, the self-employed electrician mentioned he additionally confronted the horrifying risk that he would possibly find yourself in jail.
“I didn’t know if I used to be going to undergo the inexperienced door (to jail) or the brown door (to exit the constructing),” he mentioned. “My freedom by no means meant a lot to me.”
In an interview with the American-Statesman and KVUE, Travis County District Lawyer Jose Garza apologized.
“(Mitchell) has suffered by way of a course of that I can solely think about has taken a toll on him and his household,” Garza mentioned. “The truth is that when the state brings a case towards somebody, our obligation is to make sure that we have now ample proof to show that they dedicated against the law. The state fell far in need of its obligations and duties on this case.”
In accordance with July 21 courtroom transcripts and Garza, rookie prosecutor Dymond Hayes by no means spoke with an skilled witness — a state toxicologist who revealed that she wouldn’t attest to Mitchell’s intoxication from medicine or alcohol. Garza mentioned Hayes’ co-counsel, Joe Frederick, a veteran of the district legal professional’s workplace, additionally had not mentioned take a look at outcomes or attainable testimony with the analyst.
Specialists say interviews with vital witnesses are a key a part of getting ready for trial.
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“For a prosecutor, it goes past simply trial technique and looking out good in entrance of a jury,” mentioned Stephanie Stevens, a professor at St. Mary’s regulation college in San Antonio. “They take an oath to see that justice is completed, and also you try this from speaking to witnesses. So if a ten minute cellphone name or 15 minute Zoom assembly would have revealed that, you’ve an obligation to see what they’ll say about this.”
Additionally troubling, Garza mentioned, is that an inner evaluate of the case discovered {that a} prosecutor who dealt with it in 2019 documented her cellphone dialog with Texas Division of Public Security toxicologist Renee Hawkins, who at the moment flagged the problem in figuring out if Mitchell was intoxicated. That prosecutor, who Garza didn’t title, nonetheless works for the workplace however in a distinct place. It was not clear if the prosecutors who took the case to trial in July noticed that notation within the case file.
“We rediscovered that reality far too late within the course of fairly frankly,” Garza mentioned.
It wasn’t till moments earlier than the toxicologist took the stand on the second day of Mitchell’s trial that she knowledgeable prosecutors that she couldn’t extrapolate that Mitchell, whose blood alcohol was 0.075, was above the authorized restrict of 0.08 on the time of his arrest or that another substance in his blood prompted him to be intoxicated.
“Whereas we had been in session right this moment, one in all our colleagues was speaking to an skilled witness,” Frederick informed jurors, in accordance with a transcript. “Primarily based upon the outcomes of that dialogue, we can not meet our burden past an inexpensive doubt. Intoxication can’t be confirmed.”
Neither Hayes or Frederick returned emails searching for remark.
Mitchell’s ordeal with the legal justice system started July 27, 2018.
In accordance with an affidavit written by Austin Police Division officer Seth Dooley, officers stopped Mitchell at 10:30 p.m. together with his three youngsters within the automobile for driving 91 mph in a 65 mph zone alongside Mopac (Loop 1) and Capital of Texas Freeway (Loop 360).
Mitchell “had a powerful odor of alcohol coming from his breath,” Dooley wrote, and was wobbling, swaying and misplaced his stability throughout a area sobriety examination. Mitchell mentioned he was affected by a knee harm.
Throughout a search of his pockets, an officer wrote within the affidavit, Dooley discovered a “small tightly folded up $1 invoice” and “contained in the greenback invoice was white powdery substance. As a consequence of my coaching and expertise, I do know this to be cocaine.”
Regardless of that assertion, Dooley wrote in his report that officers couldn’t collect sufficient of the substance — it was residue solely — to ship it to a state crime lab for testing, and Mitchell was by no means charged with possession.
On the jail two hours later, Mitchell was subjected to a blood draw and was launched on a private bond about 14 hours later.
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As a result of Mitchell had not accepted a plea, the case was set for trial. Travis County courts resumed trials this summer time — though they’ve been suspended once more due to a COVID-19 surge — and Mitchell’s case was among the many high on an inventory to go earlier than a jury.
Mitchell’s legal professional, Duane Graeff, mentioned he appreciated that prosecutors dropped the cost slightly than permit the case to go to jurors.
“I’ve to offer them credit score for stopping it once they did,” he mentioned. “I believe that it took some nerve on their half to say the proof is not transferring in the way in which we anticipated.”
Garza mentioned that he has put a number of reforms in place that he hopes will assist catch circumstances, akin to Mitchell’s, sooner or later. Along with having prosecutors evaluate arrests earlier than suspects are booked into jail, Garza mentioned he additionally now requires prosecutors to current their circumstances and proof to supervisors when the circumstances are depending on skilled testimony.
“Clearly, we have now an unlimited quantity of labor to do,” Garza mentioned. “We don’t view these circumstances as a roll of the cube or a sport of probability or luck. We have now an obligation to confirm the proof. And when that proof is there, we are going to transfer ahead with prosecution, and when that proof is just not there, we have now an obligation to dismiss the case.”
Two weeks after the case abruptly ended, Mitchell is relieved at the way it was resolved however mentioned he’s indignant in regards to the three years of struggling it prompted him.
“It was like being in hell,” he mentioned.
