Criminal Cases Investigation Ongoing In Tarrant County
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FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - Tarrant County District Attorney Sharen Wilson is notifying defense lawyers throughout North Texas about an investigation into the credibility of testimony by police, mostly in misdemeanor cases.
Wilson is revealing that her office discovered 22 binders of handwritten notes from former prosecutors who questioned the truthfulness of some testimony provided for the prosecution.
That testimony came from 16 police officers from a dozen different law enforcement agencies in North Texas, as well as from three analysts working for labs that tested blood in DWI cases, Wilson said in a legal process known as "Brady" notices.
Those notices are required if a prosecutor believes a police officer or expert witness is not being truthful in a case.
But that did not happen in thousands of cases – many of them DWI misdemeanors -- in North Texas, according to documents obtained by CBS 11 News' I-Team.
The binders, containing 6,000 handwritten notes from former prosecutors, date back to 1993, and were discovered when Wilson took office this year, she said.
In one "Brady" notice obtained by the I-Team, the DA said of a lab analysts: "It has come to the attention of the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney's Office that there was an issue of which we were unaware …with regard to the truthfulness of the blood analyst in this case…
"This analyst could not be sponsored as a witness."
Officers involved in the investigation, according to a statement from Wilson, are from police departments in Fort Worth, Arlington, Bedford, Crowley, Dalworthington Gardens, Euless, Grapevine, North Richland Hills, Watauga and Willow Park.
The DA also said testimony is being investigated by officers from the sheriff's departments in Tarrant and Wise counties.
A spokesman for the Fort Worth Police Department said it was aware of the investigation and, in a statement, said: "maintaining the public's trust throughout the entire criminal justice system is vital in building community legitimacy and promoting basic fundamental standards of integrity that resonate with the communities we serve."
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