Deputy’s accused killer appears in court
Special prosecutor admits to being ‘behind the 8 ball right now’ in case
Shannon Miles, who is accused of fatally shooting sheriff ’s Deputy Darren Goforth in 2015, appears in court Tuesday, when his attorney said he has no recollection of anything he did that day.
Shannon Miles, the man accused of gunning down Harris County sheriff’s deputy Darren Goforth in 2015, has no recollection of what he was doing the day of the shooting, his lawyer said Tuesday.
“Competency has, as you know, been an issue,” defense attorney Anthony Osso told state District Judge Susan Brown at a hearing. “And with his psychosis and schizophrenia, he has no recollection of the events of that day. I don’t want to say amnesia, but I don’t know what else to call it.”
Miles, 32, was in court as Brown appointed Montgomery County District Attorney Brett Ligon as the special prosecutor in the capital murder case.
Ligon will be assisted by prosecutors from Montgomery County and from the Galveston County District Attorney’s Office, headed by Jack Roady.
Ligon and Roady declined to comment on the facts in the case, saying they have yet to examine the files.
“We just got brought in, the judge is giving us some more time and we are dedicating full-time resources of the Montgomery County DA’ s office to get up to speed,” Ligon told reporters after the brief hearing. “But make no mistake, we’re behind the eight ball right now.”
Miles is accused of ambushing Goforth at a gas station in August 2015.
Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg last week asked for a special prosecutor to handle the case because Ogg’s chief of staff represented two witnesses who had information in it.
Ligon said he expects to make a decision after Labor Day about whether to seek the death penalty.
Osso is expected to give Ligon mitigation evidence the week before to try to sway the decision away from death. Osso said he is meeting in May with experts on insanity to determine whether it would be a viable defense.
He also told the judge he may consider a change of venue because of continued reports that Goforth was pumping gas when he was killed. In early reports, officials said he was filling up his gas tank. Details that emerged later showed that the deputy was there to meet a woman.
“Most people know that he had gone there to meet a young lady,” Osso said. “The confusion arose because his unit was parked next to the gas pump.”
That detail could be crucial to Osso’s defense. For the killing to be considered capital murder, it would need to involve a deputy acting in the “lawful discharge of an official duty,” Osso said.
It’s a technical point of the law, but if Goforth was there for a personal meeting, rather than to gas up his patrol car, that could downgrade the slaying from a capital murder, with a possible death penalty punishment, to a regular murder case.