Evidence Destruction
OCPD deleted the email accounts of its forensic analyst and a co-lead detective while Daniel’s direct appeal was pending.
The analyst’s email account was deleted during the appeal.
Elaine Taylor was the Oklahoma City Police Department forensic analyst whose DNA work the State presented at Daniel’s trial. Her analysis was a central issue in his direct appeal.
Taylor retired in the first week of February 2017, days after Daniel’s appellate brief was filed. In March or April, her entire OCPD email account was deleted under the City’s automatic sixty-day policy. No litigation hold had been placed on the account. Meldrum Aff. ¶¶ 2, 4, 6, Sept. 14, 2017; Taylor Dep. 7:10–12 (Jan. 15, 2019); Information Systems Acceptable Use Policy, § II, No. 13, p. 5.
The same thing had already happened to one of the case’s two lead investigators. Det. Kim Davis retired on July 31, 2016. Her OCPD email account was deleted that fall under the same policy, while Daniel’s conviction was on direct appeal. No litigation hold was placed on her account either. Davis Dep. 9:9–10 (Jan. 29, 2019); Letter from Richard C. Smith, Assistant Municipal Counselor, to Michelle Malkin, Aug. 21, 2017 (Open Records Act response).
Detective Davis emailed her about this case.
At her 2019 deposition, Davis was asked whether she sent emails about the Holtzclaw case. Sure,
she said. She described emailing Taylor DNA requests and notes asking where are we at on this case,
and said that when Daniel’s pants were booked, the request to test them for DNA would have gone to the lab the same way, as an emailed form. Davis Dep. 112:9–20, 134:5–14 (Jan. 29, 2019).
Those messages would have been in Taylor’s inbox, along with whatever she wrote back. So would any email between her and the prosecutor. She has testified that before trial she told him there was no way
to tell whether the DNA came from vaginal fluid or saliva. If any written record of that exchange existed, her account is where it would have been. Her testimony is on The Analyst In Her Own Words. Taylor Dep. 129:14–16 (Jan. 15, 2019).
The State’s own discovery receipts show Taylor’s emails were not produced.
On August 21, 2015, before trial, Daniel’s trial lawyers filed a discovery motion seeking the analysts’ complete case files, including bench notes, correspondence, and accreditation results. Def.’s Motion for Discovery, State v. Holtzclaw, No. CF-2014-5869 (Okla. Cnty. Dist. Ct. filed Aug. 21, 2015), request 40, O.R. 213.
The State kept detailed receipts identifying what it turned over. Those receipts specifically identify Taylor’s 2014 bench notes, laboratory-analysis requests, photographs she took in the forensic laboratory, and other DNA materials. They do not identify any Taylor emails or correspondence as having been produced. State’s Discovery Receipts, No. CF-2014-5869 (filed Jan. 4, 2016), letters of Sept. 21, 2015 (items 4–5), Sept. 30, 2015 (items 2–3), and Oct. 23, 2015 (items 6–7).
The sequence
- August 21, 2015 — Defense files a discovery motion seeking analysts’ complete case files, including correspondence. The State’s production receipts do not identify Taylor emails among the materials later turned over.
- July 31, 2016 — Det. Kim Davis retires from OCPD.
- September / October 2016 — Davis’s email account is deleted under the City’s automatic sixty-day policy while Daniel’s conviction is on direct appeal.
- February 1, 2017 — Daniel’s appellate brief is filed. Taylor’s DNA analysis is a central issue.
- First week of February 2017 — Taylor retires from OCPD.
- March–April 2017 — Taylor’s entire OCPD email account is deleted under the same automatic policy. No litigation hold is in place.
- June 26–27, 2017 — Closed proceedings are held concerning Taylor and her trial testimony. Daniel and his lawyers are excluded. Phil Cross, “Emails show DNA lab concerns related to Holtzclaw case”, FOX 25 (KOKH), July 28, 2017; Phil Cross, “State asks for more time to file secret response to secret hearings in Holtzclaw case”, FOX 25 (KOKH), Jan. 8, 2018.
- July 2017 — Media reports disclose that Taylor’s email account was deleted. Letter from Richard C. Smith, Litigation Division Head, Office of the Municipal Counselor, to Phil Cross (FOX 25) and Alex Cameron (News 9), July 27, 2017 (Open Records Act response); Phil Cross, “Emails show DNA lab concerns related to Holtzclaw case”, FOX 25 (KOKH), July 28, 2017.
- August 2, 2017 — The defense files a motion to preserve evidence.
- August 9, 2017 — The City Attorney confirms the deletion in writing to defense counsel. Letter from Richard C. Smith, Assistant Municipal Counselor, to James H. Lockard and Michael D. Moreheard, Oklahoma Indigent Defense System, Aug. 9, 2017.
- September 15, 2017 — The State reports a partial recovery and places litigation holds on 46 current OCPD accounts.
- June 12, 2018 — The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals denies the preservation motion as moot.
The recovery did not reach the investigation or trial.
The State reported recovering 5,149 emails and 298 attachments from Taylor’s personal workstation. That recovery covered March 2016 through February 2017.
The Holtzclaw investigation began in 2014. Trial ended in December 2015, and sentencing followed in January 2016. The recovered window therefore begins after the investigation and trial were over. No comparable recovery of Taylor’s emails from the investigation and trial period was reported. Letter from Richard C. Smith, Assistant Municipal Counselor, to appellate counsel, Sept. 15, 2017 (Ex. A to Appellant’s Reply, Sept. 20, 2017).
The City knew how to stop automatic deletion.
A litigation hold would have stopped the automatic deletion. The City’s IT director confirmed in a sworn affidavit that holds could be placed on departed employees’ accounts.
In September 2017, after the defense moved to preserve evidence, holds were placed on 46 OCPD accounts. The City deleted Taylor’s account without documenting any pre-deletion review for evidence that needed to be preserved.
The preservation mechanism existed before Taylor’s account was deleted. It was used after. Meldrum Aff. ¶¶ 3, 4, 8, Sept. 14, 2017.
The defense did not know what was about to be deleted.
The State later argued that Daniel’s lawyers had not asked for a preservation hold before Taylor’s account was deleted.
But Taylor’s retirement, which started the City’s deletion clock, was not disclosed to the defense before the account disappeared. The defense learned of the deletion through media reports in July 2017 and moved to preserve evidence within weeks.
The defense had already asked for analyst correspondence before trial, and the State’s own discovery receipts show no production of Taylor emails. What the defense did not know was that the account containing that correspondence was approaching automatic deletion. Appellant’s Reply to State’s Response, Sept. 20, 2017, pp. 1–2.
The appellate court called the preservation motion moot.
On June 12, 2018, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals denied the defense motion as moot. The court cited preservation steps the State had taken after the motion was filed. The State had acknowledged in its response that Taylor’s account had already been deleted.
The later litigation holds preserved what remained. They could not restore Taylor’s deleted email account. Order Denying Motion to Preserve Evidence, Holtzclaw v. State, No. F-2016-62 (Okla. Crim. App. June 12, 2018), at 1–2, 4–6.
Explore the rest of the case.
Daniel Holtzclaw: case summary
A summary of the whole case: the investigation, the DNA, the accusers, the trial, and where things stand.
The DNAHow 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 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.
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.
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