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SUB-HEADING:Jonathan Pitts was the face of Dallas' massive evidence e deletion last year when he was let out of jail. Last month, he pleaded guilty to murder for 15 years in prison.
PHOTO CAPTION: "Jonathan Pitts walks off the escalator after visiting the pre-trial services office on Monday, Aug. 16, 2021, at the Frank Crowley Courts Building in Dallas. Pitts, a murder suspect scheduled to go on trial, was released from Dallas County jail after it was revealed that the city may have lost evidence in his case. (Juan Figueroa/The Dallas Morning News).
FROM UPDATED CORRECTION: "This article previously said the lowest possible sentence was 15 years. It is five years. Court paperwork shows Pitts received the lowest sentence possible, but prosecutors and the defense lawyer said the paperwork is incorrect."
GIST: “A man who got out of jail last year just days before his murder trial was set to start because the city accidentally lost millions of Dallas police files pleaded guilty to the crime.
Jonathan Pitts, 36, admitted to fatally shooting Shun Handy on Jan. 28, 2019, in exchange for 15 years in prison. Pitts began his sentence last week.
Handy was killed at the notorious Han Gil Hotel, a northwest Dallas hotel that was demolished after federal authorities raided the building and 10 people, including the owner, were indicted on drug charges. The hotel had long been known to law enforcement as a hub for drugs, sex trafficking, murder and overdoses.
Mayor Eric Johnson said at the time the of Pitts’ release that it underscored the “gravity of the situation” since the discovery that multiple terabytes of evidence were permanently deleted when an employee incorrectly moved files from an online, cloud-based storage archive into an on-premise server in Dallas’ data center.
State law mandates prosecutors turn over to defense lawyers all evidence against a suspect, even if the prosecution doesn’t intend to use it.
Ultimately, authorities have said, no evidence was lost in Pitts’ case.
The plea deal “was not affected or influenced by the data loss in any way,” said Claire Crouch, a spokeswoman for the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office. Handy’s family was notified and were “OK” with the arrangement, Crouch added.
Handy’s family could not be reached for comment.
Pitts’ lawyer, George Ashford III, acknowledged his sentence is shorter than in most murder cases. The sentence range for murder is five years to life in prison. The minimum can increase if a person has previous felony convictions.
Ashford echoed the DA’s office and said he did not believe the deal was impacted by the evidence loss. Ashford said the case could be weak because witnesses would be hard to find after after federal law enforcement shut down the hotel. Some witnesses have their own criminal cases and may not be believed by a jury, he added.
“He understood the gamble he would be taking putting his life in the hands of 12 people who don’t know him and, under the circumstances, he felt like this was the best thing to do,” Ashford said.
A city review in September found that nearly 17,500 cases could have been impacted. But Creuzot said in February that prosecutors were able to find all the evidence in every case his office had.
The Dallas IT worker responsible for the deletion was fired. An independent investigation determined he did not have enough training to do the job properly.
The technician told investigators he deleted archive files without making sure copies of the evidence were saved elsewhere. More than 20 terabytes were lost, meaning more than 8 million archive police photos, videos, audio, case notes and other files.
Creuzot sounded the alarm when he sent a memo to defense lawyers Aug. 11 informing them of the evidence loss. The news caused upheaval at City Hall because the mayor, City Council and general public had not previously been told. The deletion occurred months before, beginning in March 2021.
Prosecutors were also not given a heads up from the police department or city employees. They made the discovery on their own when they noticed missing evidence and inquired with police, Creuzot said.
City manager T.C. Broadnax said city officials did not publicize the deletion because employees were trying to retrieve all the evidence."
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2022/07/01/man-released-from-jail-amid-dallas-evidence-loss-fiasco-pleads-guilty-to-murder/
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
