Video files missing from the Dallas Police Department could jeopardize criminal convictions
DALLAS (CBSNewsTexas.com) – The Dallas Police Department is downplaying the possibility that thousands of missing video files will jeopardize recent or future criminal convictions.
The problem has already delayed one murder trial but there's disagreement over what the overall impact will be.
A judge's decision to delay the murder trial of a woman accused of killing Marisela Botello turned a spotlight on a problem inside the Dallas Police Department.
Digital files containing mostly videos and photos related to the case were not turned over to the defense as required by the court.
That's because those files were missing along with as many as 52,000 others related to other criminal cases.
Dallas lawyer Toby Shook says the revelation that digital files may be lost because they were improperly catalogued will give him and other criminal defense attorneys a field day attacking the credibility of officers when their clients go on trial.
"This evidence that's been lost will be a relevant form of cross examination for the detectives, for a good defense attorney to attack the credibility of the investigation," Shook said.
There's concern that the missing files could cause the recent convictions of violent criminals to be overturned.
The Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot issued a statement addressing that concern, saying, "To our knowledge, my office has not been notified of cases that have been fully adjudicated that have been found to be missing evidence."
"We're talking 52,000 out of 3.2 million so this is not some major problematic issue," Shook said.
Dallas Police Association President Mike Mata says the vast majority of the missing digital evidence is not pertinent to their cases.
"...A lot of this is just digital video from traffic stops or somebody that wrote a ticket or from a traffic accident," Mata said. "It's just videos that haven't been tagged."
But will convicted criminals be successful using it as the basis for an appeal?
"In reality, I don't think that's going to really happen," Shook said.
Dallas police want to emphasize that while the missing digital video files may be hard to find, only those that are over two years old and weren't properly catalogued have been deleted.
