Court rejects retrial effort
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday denied a death row prisoner’s claim that prosecutors presented false evidence about fingerprints left on a 40- ounce malt liquor bottle, limiting his path to a new trial.
Two judges on the court rejected state District Judge DaSean Jones’ findings that caused him to recommend last year that Ronald Hamilton receive consideration of a new punishment, saying they were “not supported by the record or law.”
Hamilton and his attorneys failed to show that the prosecutors misled the court or misrepresented any information to the jury during the punishment phase of the trial, judges Kevin Yeary and David Newell wrote in their opinion. Using false evidence to procure a conviction would violate due process.
Hamilton’s attorneys said in a statement that they ultimately disagreed with the court’s latest ruling.
“After a lengthy hearing, the district court found Mr. Hamilton’s death sentence was based upon false and misleading evidence and that the trial prosecutors withheld evidence from Mr. Hamilton’s original defense team,” Bryan Garris and Jonathan Landers said. “The district court’s decision was based on the evidence and was correct. We disagree with the findings of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, and will now present this case to the U.S. Supreme Court. We are hopeful that, in the
end, justice will prevail.”
If it is not heard, Hamilton still has claims pending in federal district court.
The claim centered around fingerprints left more than 15 years ago on the half- empty bottle, which was found sitting outside a Houston convenience store. Defense attorneys said those fingerprints likely belonged to a killer who was not Hamilton, partly because court records show that Houston police tested the fingerprints before trial and found they didn’t match the defendant.
The defense lawyers have said they only found out after they requested testing in 2017.
The bottle didn’t exonerate Hamilton from the murder that sent him to death row — he had already admitted guilt. The fingerprints were instead meant to help prove that he didn’t commit a second murder, which was used as part of evidence showing Hamilton was so dangerous he should be put to death.
The appeals judges found that Hamilton and his lawyers did not meet the level of proof needed to show the fingerprint evidence was false. At Hamilton’s trial, Houston police testified that the bottle didn’t tie back to him or his co-defendant, the judges said.
The defense also didn’t prove that the bottle was material in identifying the shooter in the second murder, and the witness who testified that the shooter handled a bottle before the slaying used ambiguous language and wavered on the assertion, Yeary and Newell said.
Jones had adopted the defense’s claims as fact, and the case was brought to the appeals court as the next step in the appeal. The court outright reject Jones’ findings in its opinion.
Hamilton was sentenced to death for the November 2001 slaying of Ismail Matalkah, a clerk shot during a botched robbery at a convenience store on Yellowstone Boulevard. Hamilton pleaded guilty on the first day of his trial, and his attorneys sought to convince the jury to spare his life.
During the punishment phase of the trial, prosecutors presented evidence that he was a future danger if left alive, based on his past drug history, misbehavior in jail and his alleged role in the capital murder of a second store clerk that same year.
One witness in the secondmurder testified that she’d seen the shooter urinate over a liquor bottle beforewalking inside to rob the store.
Prosecutors had said that Hamilton could still be guilty of the second killing, even if the fingerprints on the bottle didn’t belong to him. Joshua Reiss, chief of the Harris County District Attorney’s Office writs division, declined to comment.