NLR officer’s name goes on tracking list
Prosecutor says inclusion serves as flag
A North Little Rock police officer who was fired while working for the Little Rock Police Department has been placed by the local prosecuting attorney’s office on a list that tracks law enforcement officers with potential disciplinary action in their pasts.
David “Trey” Mattox was fired last year after Little Rock Police Chief Keith Humphrey sustained violations of untruthfulness and unauthorized investigation against Mattox.
Those violations stemmed from Mattox’s participation in the 2020 search for a suspect who had exposed himself to a series of women in Little Rock, including Mattox’s wife.
Mattox’s firing was overturned by the Little Rock Civil Service Commission in November. Commissioners upheld the violations against him but opted to impose less-severe discipline — a one-month suspension and the addition of a letter of reprimand to his personnel file.
But just days after the commission voted to reinstate him, Mattox resigned from the department to begin working for the North Little Rock Police Department as a patrol officer.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette obtained the list from the Pulaski County prosecuting attorney’s office after submitting an Arkansas Freedom of Information Act request.
Nationwide, these lists often maintained by prosecutors are commonly known as “Brady” lists, named after
the 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decision Brady v. Maryland.
The decision held that prosecutors who suppress evidence favorable to the defense with regard to an individual’s guilt or punishment upon request violate the due process rights of the accused.
Exculpatory evidence that must be disclosed to defense attorneys has come to be known as “Brady” material. The rule applies to law enforcement officials whose credibility could be undermined because of past misconduct.
The initial 1963 ruling, as well as subsequent decisions, have led some prosecutors’ offices to compile lists of officers whose credibility could be questioned if they are called to testify as part of criminal proceedings.
John Johnson, chief deputy prosecuting attorney for the 6th Judicial District, which covers Pulaski and Perry counties, told the Democrat-Gazette via email that an officer’s inclusion on the list is not considered to be confirmation of a “Brady” violation.
Johnson wrote that “in an abundance of caution, we keep a list of officers who have been, maybe, or may have been disciplined. This information comes to us in a variety of ways.”
“Then, if an officer on that list is subpoenaed for trial, we contact the pertinent law enforcement agency for confirmation and records of the disciplinary action, and then submit those records to the trial court for final determination of whether the records are Brady material, and therefore discoverable by the defense,” Johnson added.
Instead of serving as confirmation that a listed officer has been disciplined, a name simply acts as a trigger for prosecutors to contact the law enforcement agency, he said.
“So there are likely people on our list who have not committed Brady violations,” Johnson wrote. “Further, we do not keep a list of officers whose records the court has turned over to the defense as being discoverable pursuant to Brady. We engage in the process, anew, every time.”
In response to questions regarding when and why Mattox was added to the list, Johnson wrote, “The only thing to be said about any officer’s name being on our list is that it is a starting point for an inquiry by this office.”
“There are many different sources of information, including the news media, that cause this office to want to check with a law enforcement agency about the status of a particular officer,” he continued. “So the fact that someone is on our list doesn’t mean that there has been a finding of wrongdoing, only that this office (in an abundance of caution) is going to check their status before trial.”
The spreadsheet obtained from the prosecuting attorney’s office lists names under columns labeled for various law enforcement agencies, including the Little Rock Police Department, the Pulaski County sheriff’s office, the Maumelle Police Department and Arkansas State Police.
Robert Newcomb, a local attorney who represents Mattox, said he did not know if Mattox had been informed that he had been added to the list.
Additionally, Newcomb suggested that it was “a little bit premature” because Mattox’s case remains on appeal.
Even though the Civil Service Commission overturned his firing, Mattox filed a notice in December in Pulaski County Circuit Court informing the court that a notice of appeal had been filed with the commission.
As a result of the pending appeal, Newcomb said, “there’s no actual final order finding him to be a liar.”
When asked for comment on Mattox’s inclusion on the list, North Little Rock Police Department spokeswoman Lt. Amy Cooper said in an email that the department “conducts thorough background inquiries for all applicants with this department.”
“As you stated in your e-mail, you have obtained a list from the Prosecutor’s Office,” Cooper wrote. “That list does not indicate that there was any wrongdoing by anyone on the list and the prosecutor would need to inquire about the status of any listed officer prior to trial.”
Two names are listed under the North Little Rock Police Department category, Mattox and Jon Crowder.
Crowder was arrested and charged with third-degree battery in 2019 after bones in a man’s arms were fractured during a traffic stop the year before.
The prosecuting attorney’s office found that Crowder’s use of force rose to a criminal level, the Democrat-Gazette reported at the time.
The Little Rock Police Department category on the list has the most names by far, with 110 individuals listed.
They include Charles Starks, another one of Newcomb’s clients. Starks was fired, reinstated and ultimately resigned from the Little Rock Police Department after he fatally shot a 30-year-old man suspected of driving a stolen vehicle in 2019.
In a July memo, Humphrey sustained the two allegations against Mattox in light of the indecent-exposure case. However, his memo listed an allegation of insubordination as not sustained.
“It is very clear that Officer Mattox clearly violated department policies by utilizing sensitive police resources to conduct an unauthorized criminal investigation involving his wife,” Humphrey wrote. “I also believe that others who participated in the latter part of this criminal investigation expedited certain areas to make an arrest.”