One of my past cases involved a murder charge whose coarse of events led to the accidental death of a Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy.
My client was at the St. James topless bar near Rankin and Kuykendahl at highway 45 in North Houston. He and his friends left the club, his friends leaving in one car while my client following in another vehicle. The friends were firing rifles and guns into the air outside the club. Then an off-duty Sheriff’s Deputy, in plain clothes, ran outside to investigate the shooting, and gave chase in his personal vehicle.
The cars of the revelers were stopped back to back at the traffic light when the sheriff’s deputy pulled up, exited his vehicle, approached the first vehicle with pistol and badge in hand and fired off a round, barely missing the passenger and driver of the lead vehicle.
Jack B. Carroll, a Board Certified® criminal defense attorney in Houston, will defend individuals charged with crimes related to murder, capital murder, negligent homicide, and manslaughter. If you need help fighting a criminal charge of this magnitude, call me at 713-228-4607.
They may have thought it was an attempted hijacking and drove off.
My client in the second vehicle thought it was a hijacking, ducked and stomped on the gas pedal causing the car to swerve and strike the Deputy.
Witnesses at the scene said my client was grinning and intentionally ran over the officer.
Long before the criminal trial I contacted the witnesses and a couple of them met me at the scene. I explained what was alleged in the offense report, and after careful questioning, they said they may have been mistaken about what they saw in the few seconds between the shooting and the death of the police officer.
At trial I subpoenaed the Harris County Sheriff’s Department training book and a high level Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy to explain the guidelines, many of which were not followed by the slain deputy. The jury was in its seventh hour of deliberation when I was approached by the prosecuting attorney with a plea bargain which included having all murder charges dismissed with an offer of deferred adjudication for negligent homicide.
I advised my client against accepting the offer because I thought the jury was about to come back with a not guilty verdict, but it wasn’t me who was going to Huntsville in the event I was wrong.
My client accepted the plea bargain and went home that day.
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