Daniel Holtzclaw
An Oklahoma City police officer convicted in 2015 and sentenced to 263 consecutive years. UNCUFF believes Daniel is completely innocent and we support his effort to obtain a new trial.
A 263-year sentence for crimes that were never committed.
In 2015, Daniel Holtzclaw — then an Oklahoma City police officer — stood trial on thirty-six counts arising from the accounts of thirteen allegedly independent women. The jury convicted him on eighteen counts. The court sentenced him to 263 years — longer than the history of the United States.
UNCUFF has reviewed roughly 14,000 pages of case material, a trial transcript of about 6,000 pages, more than thirty depositions, thousands of civil-litigation emails, and the appellate filings. We believe there is no doubt that Daniel was wrongfully convicted.
The State misled the jury about the evidence and its investigative method was absurd.
The only physical evidence — DNA from one accuser on the fly of Daniel's pants — was presented to the jury as something it was not.
The State’s only claimed forensic corroboration was trace DNA in tiny quantities recovered from the fly of Daniel’s uniform pants and attributed principally to one of the accusers, Adaira Gardner. The prosecutor told the jury it was a “fact” the DNA came from Ms. Gardner’s vaginal fluids and was deposited there while Daniel raped her through the fly of his pants. This “fact,” however, had a gaping hole: The State never tested the material on the pants to see if it was vaginal cells. It never even viewed it with an Alternate Light Source, a standard step in sexual assault investigations where bodily fluids are suspected. Instead, the State’s analyst testified that a woman of Ms. Gardner’s age would secrete abundant vaginal fluids during a rape, which would carry the cells from her vagina to the fabric of the pants. The co-lead detective later referred to these secretions as “sloppy sex remnants.” Trial Tr. 4307:8–13; Trial Tr. 4065; Gill et al. (2017), pp. 11–12; Gregory–Davis interview for MMI, Sept. 19, 2016 (transcript, file 542_0930, at 2).
If the fly was saturated with sloppy remnants, the quantity of DNA would have been orders of magnitude higher. And sloppy remnants leave physical signs such as staining. There was none. The analyst who examined the pants under a very bright light and with a magnifying glass testified she could see nothing suspicious. Trial Tr. 4084:2–22.
Back in 2017, a panel of forensic scientists, including renowned DNA expert Peter Gill, looked at the case. They concluded that innocuous transfer was far more likely than rape. Daniel had searched Ms. Gardner the day prior and likely went to the bathroom after he did so. If he touched Ms. Gardner during the search then touched his fly when he took them off before he went to bed or went to the bathroom, that could easily explain the low-level DNA found on his fly. Gill et al. (2017).
Police didn’t find accusers. They went out and manufactured them.
Only four of the thirteen women came to police on their own:
- Jannie Ligons, the first accuser, said Daniel orally sodomized her through the fly of his pants. Forensic tests found no trace of Daniel in her mouth and none of her DNA on his fly. Read more about Ligons here.
- Like Ligons, Terri Morris said she was orally sodomized by a police officer. She reported it on May 24, 2014, nearly a month before Ligons came forward. Her description of the officer, his patrol car, and the date and location of the encounter did not match Daniel. After Ligons’s report, Detective Rocky Gregory went back to Morris to connect her account to Daniel. Her location moved to fit Daniel’s records, and police took a new date, May 8, from the same records. Morris never supplied that date and later testified it was wrong. Her description of the officer and his car never matched. The jury rejected her claims. Read more about Morris here.
- Kala Lyles came forward after Daniel’s arrest was publicized by the media. She claimed he raped and orally sodomized her through the fly of his pants, but none of her DNA was found on the fly. The jury rejected her claims. Read more about Lyles here.
Like Lyles, Shardayreon Hill came forward after the news media publicized the case. She told a story about being sexually assaulted in a hospital room with nurses working twenty feet away, the night Daniel got her to the ER after she swallowed PCP. The State showed the jury their Facebook messages as evidence of grooming. The first message in the thread is hers, nineteen days after that night: “thanks for looking out for me that night lol.. make it ring ;)”.
She made her claims to a detective in a videotaped interview. After the interview appeared to be over, with the camera still recording, she stood up and said: “Even if he didn’t like even rape nobody or nothing he’s still getting in contact with people he arrested.” Watch it here. According to the defense investigator on the video, Brian Bates, the prosecutor had never heard that part of the tape before trial. The jury rejected her claims.
The other nine accusers – the bulk of the case against Daniel – were proactively sought out by police. After Ligons’s report, a lieutenant went through Daniel’s patrol-car records, pulled out Black women with drug or prostitution histories, printed a packet on each one, and handed the stack to two detectives to go knock on doors. The detectives approached more than forty women, many of whom were extremely vulnerable (mental health problems, drug addiction, outstanding warrants, etc). The detectives opened with a brazen lie. They told the women they had “received a tip” that they had been sexually assaulted by a police officer. There was no tip. Detective Kim Davis admitted under oath that she made it up. When a woman said no, they kept going. One woman said no five times before the detective told her he was investigating “a really bad guy” with “lots of victims”; only then did she change her answer. And still, thirty-four women told police nothing had happened.
UNCUFF considers this to be a highly improper investigative method that is virtually guaranteed to result in false allegations. Forensic Examination Report SD-14-273, pp. 7–8; Scott Adams 00070, 01116, 01137–38, 01150, 02018; Gregory Dep. 53:13–54:12 (Jan. 17, 2019); Morris Dep. 60:15–61:2 (Dec. 13, 2018); Scott Adams 05878, 05880; Trial Tr. 1329, 1331; Scott Adams 08663 (Facebook thread); Hill video interview with Det. Gregory, Sept. 19, 2014, as quoted at trial, Trial Tr. 1422:20–1424:3 (cross-examination of Hill), 1731:1–4; Trial Tr. 2385–88, 2423–24; Mot. Hr’g Tr. 112:16–113:15 (Sept. 3, 2014); Davis Dep. 249:17–250:6 (Jan. 29, 2019); Trial Tr. 2200, 2204–05, 2221–22, 2245–47; OKC 0394–0395; Turvey & Mares, Forensic Report (July 1, 2020), at 8.
Daniel’s underwear had no fly. Eight accusers said he just unzipped and pulled it out.
Eight of the nine women who alleged rape or oral sodomy told the same story: Daniel kept his pants on and his penis came out through the fly. Jannie Ligons put it plainly: “he just unzipped it and took it out.” There’s a problem with that. Under his uniform Daniel wore compression shorts, and compression shorts have no fly. His girlfriend testified that getting anything out would mean working the shorts down inside his pants, something she said would “take some work.” Not one of the eight described anything like that. Trial Tr. 4118–19, 4126–27; Scott Adams 00104; Trial Tr. 1146.
The trial was a circus.
Protesters gathered outside the courtroom. Chants demanding a life sentence were audible during testimony. The defense asked to sequester the jury; the court declined until deliberations. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals later held that the trial judge’s admonitions and protective measures were sufficient. UNCUFF disagrees and believes the jury should have been better insulated from pressure outside the courtroom. Trial Tr. 2303–21, 4315; Holtzclaw v. State, 2019 OK CR 17, ¶¶ 23–33.
They took a good young man’s life.
Daniel was 27, a young cop in a serious relationship, working one of the roughest beats in Oklahoma City and planning a family and a career. He is now 39 and has spent more than a decade in a prison cell for crimes that never happened, and a former police officer in prison faces dangers most inmates never will. Every year that passes is a year nobody can give back to him.
Daniel is still fighting, and so are we.
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the convictions on August 1, 2019, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined review in March 2020. Daniel is now pursuing post-conviction relief in Oklahoma County District Court. Holtzclaw v. State, 2019 OK CR 17, 448 P.3d 1134; Holtzclaw v. Oklahoma, 140 S. Ct. 1296 (2020).
Much of that fight is over a record Daniel has never seen. In May 2017, while his appeal was pending, the State asked for a sealed hearing on issues attendant to the testimony of an expert witness.
It was held over two days that June, without Daniel or his lawyers. The appeals court later said his counsel should have had the opportunity to participate fully,
but the transcripts and exhibits remain sealed. His appellate lawyer was allowed to read them in 2017, under an order that barred him from sharing them with anyone, including the experts he needed to make sense of them. Not until 2025 did the court let DNA expert Dr. Michael Spence, forensic scientist Dr. Brent Turvey, and co-counsel Oscar Michelen read them, under a marshal’s supervision, and it has barred all of them from disclosing what they read. On August 13, 2026, his lawyer asked the court to let Daniel himself review the transcripts. That request is pending. Order Granting Appellant’s Motion to Review Sealed Documents, No. F-2016-62 (Okla. Crim. App. June 10, 2026); Order Granting Motion to Unseal Documents and Setting Briefing Schedule, No. F-2016-62 (June 8, 2018), at 3; Orders, No. F-2016-62 (Apr. 7, May 20, May 29, Aug. 13, Aug. 25, Nov. 14, 2025; Mar. 25, June 10, July 28, 2026); Mot. to Permit Appellant to Personally Review Sealed Documents Under Supervision, No. F-2016-62 (filed Aug. 13, 2026), at 2.
UNCUFF is helping pay for the investigation, forensic experts and litigation, because a man this obviously innocent should not have to fight alone.
Explore the evidence.
How the State Distorted the DNA Evidence
A trace of DNA, less than a car door handle leaves, and no stain. The prosecutor called it “fact” that it came from a rape.
The analystThe Analyst In Her Own Words
The State’s only forensic witness, on video: what she looked for, what she didn’t test, what she told the prosecutor, and what her opinions rested on.
The emailsEvidence Destruction
The analyst’s email account was deleted while the appeal was pending. What the State later recovered began after the trial was over.
The searchHow the State Manufactured Accusers
Nine of thirteen accusers were found by police, who opened with a “tip” that didn’t exist. Thirty-some other women said nothing happened.
Accuser evidenceWhat Police Never Checked
Missing recordings and what the objective records actually showed, once each woman had made her allegation.
Case studyTerri Morris
How Morris's allegation changed, how police selected May 8, and what the AVL records do and do not show.
The first accuserJannie Ligons
The June 18 allegation, the unrecorded first interview, and the negative forensic test results.
Case studySherry Ellis
How police found Ellis, the description that did not match Daniel, and her later testimony that she had never seen him before trial.
Case studyKala Lyles
Twenty or thirty minutes through the fly, hours before the pants were seized. Her DNA wasn’t there, and the patrol car’s records leave about eleven minutes.
Case studyVictim #14
Her account fit Daniel’s records better than most. The State closed her case for a reason it never applied to the allegations it took to trial.
The fly“I Don’t Know How He Did It.”
Jannie Ligons said it at trial. Eight of the nine women who alleged rape or oral sodomy placed the act through the fly of pants that stayed on. Under the uniform, Daniel wore compression shorts with no fly. Getting past them would take work. Nobody has ever explained how he was able to extricate himself with so little time and effort.
Guilt by associationOne Accuser’s DNA Carried Twelve Others
The only physical evidence belonged to one accuser. All thirteen were tried together, and jurors later said the DNA got deliberations moving when they doubted some of the others.
The courtroomThe Circus-Like Trial
The protests, audible chanting, courthouse conditions, and the denied request to sequester the jury.
The manWho Daniel Was
A rookie his supervisors called eager and liked by all, whose phone and work computer held nothing incriminating, and who sat for two hours with the detectives accusing him and urged them to test his DNA.
Read Daniel Holtzclaw’s direct-appeal brief ↗
Filed on February 1, 2017 by appellate counsel James H. Lockard and Michael D. Morehead, the brief challenges the convictions on multiple grounds. Proposition III addresses the circus atmosphere
surrounding the trial and the outside pressures confronting the jury.
Read Dr. Michael Spence’s DNA affidavit ↗
Forensic DNA expert Dr. Michael J. Spence reviewed the laboratory data and challenged the prosecution’s interpretation of the DNA recovered from Daniel’s uniform pants.
Read the Coyne–Adams amicus brief ↗
Former University of Oklahoma law professor Randall T. Coyne and former U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division attorney J. Christian Adams sought leave to file this brief in support of Daniel’s direct appeal. The Court of Criminal Appeals denied the motion on March 31, 2017, so the brief was not accepted as an amicus filing. It remains useful as an advocacy document about the protesters, courthouse conditions, and possible outside influence on the jury. Order Denying Motion for Leave to File Amicus Curiae Brief, Holtzclaw v. State, No. F-2016-62 (Okla. Crim. App. Mar. 31, 2017).
Read “Secret Proceedings in Holtzclaw Case Raise Serious Issues” ↗
New York trial lawyer Oscar Michelen, writing in May 2018, examines the sealed orders and the June 2017 closed hearings against the Sixth Amendment right to be present with counsel at every critical stage and the First Amendment presumption that criminal proceedings are open, and asks how a court could exclude the defendant himself.
Watch “Daniel in the Den: The Truth About the Holtzclaw Case” ↗
This two-part documentary was reported and produced in 2016 by journalist Michelle Malkin for CRTV, and is now available free on YouTube.
Disclosure: Michelle Malkin is married to UNCUFF’s president, Jesse Malkin. She is not an officer, director, or employee of UNCUFF, and UNCUFF has no financial interest in the film.
Watch “The Daniel Holtzclaw Case from a Law Enforcement Officer’s Perspective” ↗
In this video, Jason Angel, a police officer in Oklahoma, discusses Daniel’s case from a law enforcement perspective, including how investigative bias and public pressure can shape a case.
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