Deputy’s killer sentenced to death
Solis fatally shot the beloved lawman during a traffic stop in 2019
Prosecutors listed the names of those Robert Solis has robbed, sexually assaulted and hurt during three decades of crime — ending with Deputy Sandeep Dhaliwal, the beloved lawman and Harris County’s first observant Sikh deputy he killed during a 2019 traffic stop.
Assistant District Attorney Lauren Bard asked the jurors to let it end there and hand him the death penalty. After 35 minutes of deliberating a choice of death or life without parole, those jurors concluded that Solis, 50, should face the state’s harshest punishment of execution.
He showed no reaction after learning his fate. He stood alone after having fired his lawyers weeks before and choosing to represent himself.
“How you do you punish a man who doesn’t fear the consequences?” Bard asked in closing arguments, labeling him a “lying, manipulative, narcissistic, antisocial psychopath.”
The prosecutors found more victims than anticipated while digging into his life, including a woman he had allegedly sexually assaulted at age 14 and a young girl who accused him of molestation. More than 40 people were brought to the courtroom to testify about their encounters with Solis during the punishment phase — compared to the 25 people brought to the witness stand as jurors contemplated his guilt.
Solis acknowledged in court that he raped the woman but challenged the veracity of the girl’s account that he sexually assaulted her when she was 11. The defendant chose to represent himself and cross-examined most witnesses.
The same teen, now 16, con
fronted him with a victim impact statement after jurors handed him the death penalty. She commanded him to be quiet as he interrupted her — attempting again to dispute her words. Bailiffs surrounded him.
“No one likes you,” the girl said, going on to call him a “low-life abomination and a sad excuse of a human being.”
“I am so glad you got the death penalty,” she continued.
Most of the courtroom, including Judge Chris Morton and the jurors who remained to hear her words, stood up to applaud her as she left the witness stand.
Bailiffs led Solis into a holding area for inmates without incident.
‘The worst of the worst’
Solis is among the dwindling number of Houston-area defendants for whom prosecutors have sought the death penalty during District Attorney Kim Ogg’s tenure. The punishment is saved for the most heinous crimes, according to officials.
He will join more than 70 defendants from Harris County on death row, only two of whom — Ronald Haskell and Lucky Ward — were sent there by jurors since 2017. A committee within the Harris County District Attorney’s Office decides when to pursue the punishment to prevent one person, such as the district attorney herself, from making the decision alone.
The district attorney’s office is seeking the death penalty against at least one defendant, Xavier Davis, whose case is pending.
“We reserve the death penalty in Texas for the worst of the worst,” Ogg said. “Killing a police officer in cold blood, full uniform qualifies.”
The prosecutors pursuing the charge have a say in whether to seek the punishment, she continued.
Another prosecutor, Katie Warren, told jurors to consider whether Solis would be a future danger to society and if any evidence existed that the defendant should not receive the death penalty. She feared that if Solis entered the general prison population, he would have the means to manipulate others into doing his bidding.
She acknowledged Solis’ cunning intelligence will make him smarter than most everyone he’ll be imprisoned with.
The jurors had an alternative — sentencing him to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Even then, Bard warned that he would be a danger to correctional officers and the inmates around him.
“The man is a walking violation of the penal code,” Bard said. “He doesn’t care who he hurts, just so long as he gets what he wants. He is a future danger.”
Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez spoke alongside Dhaliwal’s family after the trial and called the punishment appropriate.
Dhaliwal’s family did not address their beliefs on the death penalty following the verdict.
Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia, who as sheriff recruited Dhaliwal to join their ranks, expressed “mixed feelings” about the jury’s decision to hand Solis the death penalty, but later said the sentencing was appropriate.
“Any time you are able to hand down the death sentence, it means something horrible has happened,” Garcia said. “That death sentence needs to happen as a way to bring vindication to everyone.”
The death sentence follows two weeks of emotional testimony and the swift, 25-minute decision by jurors to find Solis guilty.
Dhaliwal’s body-worn and dash cameras showed Solis looking down at the mortally wounded deputy one last time before fleeing for a nearby shopping center to stash his sister’s car, her gun and wait, to no avail, for someone to pick him up.
No one came for him after realizing that he had killed the deputy.
Solis, a wanted parolee at the time of the shooting, told jurors that he believed Dhaliwal falsely imprisoned him and that he shot him during a botched attempt at a citizen’s arrest.
Friends and family of Dhaliwal, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office’s trailblazing Sikh patrol deputy, observed the proceedings daily amid the unusual decision by Solis to fire his veteran lawyers and represent himself.
He had a chance to appeal to jurors before starting their deliberations.
He previously told the jurors to give him the death penalty — a request that Warren dismissed as an example of his manipulation.
“I really don’t have much to say,” Solis said. “The only thing I have to say is that it’s your decision to make. My life is in your hands.”
‘He did his own self in’
The jurors, one by one, started to leave the courtroom as the trial came to an end. One said there was little doubt in their minds about what to do with Solis.
“We sat down to eat lunch and the (foreman) said, ‘Who thinks he’s guilty?’ ” juror Randall Rashke said. “Everybody raised their hand.”
The decision was delivered to the courtroom within 25 minutes — the same amount of time it took for Solis to fatally shoot Dhaliwal during the deadly traffic stop. The body-worn camera footage sealed their opinion on Solis’ guilt, Rashke said
The jury was just as quick to determine his punishment, he continued.
But it was the teen girl’s testimony that wrenched his heart.
“I knew he would never see the light of day again,” Rashke said.
Another juror, who declined to be identified as she headed for the elevator, said she started her duties with an open mind but quickly found that Solis was to blame for his fate. His attitude throughout the trial was questionable, she continued.
Solis, as his own representation, was repeatedly admonished by Morton for attempting to introduce inadmissible evidence, clashes that often led the judge to remove the jurors from the room to avoid hearing their discussions.
The judge rarely sustained his objections and frequently reminded him that he fired three lawyers appointed to defend him.
“He did his own self in,” the juror concluded.
As with all death sentences in Texas, Solis’ case will be automatically appealed. It remains unknown if he will represent himself or garner a defense attorney to take on his appeal.