<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/n9VddIkptVc" width="459"></iframe>
Link to video if it doesn't work. (And it should appear below this post as well.)
- I'm doing things a little different today because I'm angry.
- But first for what I am not angry about: For over a year, I have represented Aric Maxwell on charges of Capital Murder. Yesterday, all charges against him were dropped because a DNA report exonerated him.
- My full press release about the case is here. If you care about Wise County, read every word. The background on what has happened is insane.
- I'll admit to going full throttle in that press release, but what I read yesterday after the dismissals were signed is what has put me even further over the edge this morning.
- Yesterday I read in horror the comments of Wise County Sheriff Lane Akin in the Wise County Messenger where, despite the D.A.'s office taking the unprecedented action of dismissing a capital murder case, he refused to acknowledge the travesty of justice he and his office had committed. He said: “We’re not saying this clears Maxwell. It still doesn’t mean he didn’t do it. It means there’s another person of interest, and we need to find out who that person is.” Edit: The comments may have been made by the D.A. which Akin acquiesced in. Akin, like the D.A., implied it was a consensual encounter. (This was a joint effort by them to get in front of the story on Wednesday when they met with a Messenger reporter before the formal dismissals.)
- I'm livid.
- There is a DNA report exonerating Aric. He was indicted on the charge of murdering her while sexual assaulting her. The DNA was unquestionably left at the time of the murder. It is the kind of bombshell evidence you see all the time which allows people wrongfully imprisoned for years to go free. And what's worse, the Sheriff's Office had that DNA report since last September but didn't know how to read it.
- His office screwed up this investigation, they didn't know how to read a DNA report, and when people tried to explain it to them, they still didn't understand. And while the Sheriff was slapping himself on the back after the wrongful arrest, a killer slipped through his fingers. A killer that, based upon his comments, he doesn't seem to be particularly interested in now finding.
- You want to know what a cluster this is? His office arrested Aric without even waiting for the results of the DNA report on the sperm cells! And, coincidentally, the Sheriff just happened to announce his re-election campaign on the same week that Aric was arrested.
- Wise County Sheriff Lane Akin's malfeasance is going to cost Wise County an untold amount of money for what he has done to Aric. And his continued assertions that Aric might be guilty are only going to cause Wise County to add extra zeros to the check they are going to write. The Wise County Commissioners and their legal advisors would be wise to protect the taxpayers from further damage by our Sheriff by telling him to stop talking. He's done enough harm. And after that, they might want to tell him to find the killer of Lauren Whitener.
- Yep, I'm angry.
- As for the video, here's what you are seeing. The first part is Aric's last interview with a Texas Ranger at the DPS office in Decatur. The Sheriff's Office already had the arrest warrant in hand. They could have simply and easily arrested him in the DPS office, and he would have certainly cooperated. Instead, they allowed him to get into a truck with his elderly father and ambush him just feet away from that DPS office. When you see Aric walk through the jail door at the end, he would not exit for almost six months.
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