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Daniel Holtzclaw

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Revision as of 12:57, 5 December 2024 by A ton of bricks (talk | contribs) (The article contains excessive detail.)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) American convicted rapist and former police officer

Daniel Holtzclaw
BornDaniel Ken Holtzclaw
(1986-12-10) December 10, 1986 (age 38)
Guam
NationalityAmerican
EducationEastern Michigan University
OccupationFormer Oklahoma City Police Department patrol officer
Conviction(s)
Criminal penaltyLife imprisonment with the possibility of parole (263 years)
Details
Victims8
CountryUnited States
State(s)Oklahoma
Date apprehendedAugust 21, 2014
Imprisoned atLexington Assessment and Reception Center

Daniel Ken Holtzclaw (born December 10, 1986) is a convicted rapist. He was convicted in December 2015 of multiple counts of rape, sexual battery, and other sex offenses while on duty as an Oklahoma City Police Officer.

Holtzclaw was convicted of eighteen counts involving eight different women. According to the police investigators, Holtzclaw abused his position as an officer by running background checks to find information that could be used to coerce victims into sex. During the trial, the defense questioned the victims' credibility during cross-examination, bringing up their criminal records. Of the thirteen women who accused Holtzclaw, several had criminal histories such as drug arrests, and all of them were African American. The prosecution argued that victims were chosen by Holtzclaw for these reasons.

Holtzclaw pleaded not guilty to all charges. On December 10, 2015, he was convicted on 18 of 36 charges, and on January 21, 2016, he was sentenced to 263 years in prison.

On August 1, 2019, Holtzclaw was denied an appeal by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, which upheld both his convictions and prison sentence. The defense petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States on the basis that merging seventeen cases together "strains credulity". On March 9, 2020, the Supreme Court refused the petition.

Early life

Daniel Holtzclaw was born December 10, 1986, in the U.S. territory of Guam, to Eric, a German-American, and a Japanese mother, Kumiko Holtzclaw. His father is a lieutenant with the police department in Enid, Oklahoma.

Holtzclaw graduated from Enid High School in 2005. In 2010, he graduated with a degree in criminal justice at Eastern Michigan University. After graduating, Holtzclaw unsuccessfully attempted to get drafted into the NFL. Following that, he joined the Oklahoma City Police Department.

Criminal charges and conviction

Charges

Holtzclaw was accused of sexually assaulting multiple African American women over the period between December 2013 and June 2014, targeting those from a poorer, majority Black portion of the city. According to police investigators, Holtzclaw ran background checks on women with outstanding warrants or other criminal records, and targeted them.

The offense that led to Holtzclaw's arrest happened around 2:00 a.m. on June 18, 2014, after Holtzclaw had completed his shift and was driving to his residence. During that time Holtzclaw made a traffic stop, running a records check on the driver, a 57-year-old woman passing through the impoverished area that Holtzclaw was targeting. Unlike other women that he had accosted, she was not poor and had no police record. The woman testified that he forced her to perform oral sex on him. She promptly filed a police report.

When Holtzclaw reported to the OKCPD station the following afternoon, he was pulled aside and driven to the department's Sex Crimes Unit for questioning, during which Holtzclaw denied all accusations of misconduct. At the conclusion of the interrogation, the two detectives told Holtzclaw that they believed he was lying, based both on previous evidence and on statements made by his 25-year-old cohabiting girlfriend, that countered claims Holtzclaw had made. After the interrogation, Holtzclaw's work possessions were seized and he was placed on indefinite paid administrative leave. After further investigation turned up a dozen additional complainants, Holtzclaw was arrested two months later on August 21, 2014, and charged with 16 (eventually 36) counts of sexual abuse offenses including rape in the first and second degrees, sexual battery, procuring lewd exhibition, stalking, and forcible oral sodomy.

During the investigations, the two detectives found a report of a woman who said she was stopped in May 2014 and driven to an isolated area by an officer who forced her to perform oral sex. No action had been taken. When the detectives contacted the woman, she showed them the route that the officer had taken, and it matched Holtzclaw's GPS route. The detectives reviewed Holtzclaw's recorded history of running names, looking for people who had been checked out multiple times, and contacted those women. Six women were willing to come forward to testify, and the GPS device on Holtzclaw's patrol car put him at the scene of the alleged incidents. He had called in for a warrant check on all of them. Their investigation covered a six-month period.

Accusations of sexual assault and rape

The prosecution's investigation brought together 13 women who were willing to testify. The earliest incident discovered was from December 20, 2013, where a woman said she had been arrested for drug possession, was hospitalized, and was forced to give oral sex while she was handcuffed to her hospital bed. She said that he made sexual advances to her on several occasions after she was released from jail. The woman said that she was led to believe that she would be released if she performed oral sex.

Jury selection

The final jury was an all-white jury which consisted of 8 men and 4 women. The president of the Oklahoma City chapter of the NAACP expressed disappointment in the lack of minority jurors.

Trial

Holtzclaw's trial began on November 2, 2015. He faced 36 charges, including sexual battery, assault, forcible oral sodomy, and stalking. He pleaded not guilty to all charges.

On December 10, 2015, he was convicted on 18 of the charges, with the jury recommending that he serve 263 years in prison. Charges included first-degree rape, sexual battery, indecent exposure, stalking, forcible oral sodomy and burglary. He also faced second-degree rape by instrumentation and sexual battery charges. Claiming that evidence was withheld from the defense, Holtzclaw's attorney requested a new trial on January 20, 2016. The request was denied by the judge.

A statement released by Oklahoma City Police Chief, Bill Citty, reads in part: "We are satisfied with the jury's decision and firmly believe justice was served."

Soon after his sentencing, all of Holtzclaw's information was removed from the Oklahoma Department of Corrections (ODOC) website. When asked where Holtzclaw is currently located, ODOC spokesperson Terri Watkins replied, "We are not going to comment, it is a matter of security." It was later confirmed that he was being held in an undisclosed Oklahoma state prison.

In a 2016 interview, Holtzclaw reasserted his innocence.

Appeal process

In a unanimous opinion on August 1, 2019, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals denied Holtzclaw's appeal. The ruling, written by Judge Dana Kuehn, rejected the appellant attorneys' claims of insufficient evidence and of improper procedure for bundling all 36 charges together.

On March 9, 2020, Holtzclaw's petition for a writ of certiorari was denied by the Supreme Court of the United States.

Media coverage

According to The Atlantic, mainstream media gave Holtzclaw's trial for serial sexual attacks and rapes "relatively little" attention.

In the absence of national attention, two Oklahoma City women, Grace Franklin and Candace Liger, formed the group OKC Artists for Justice to bring attention to the case. They said that they began to organize when Holtzclaw's bail was reduced from $5 million to $500,000 because it was so "insulting and infuriating". Franklin said that they reached out to many national groups but received little response. "It kind of fuels the feeling of separation between black feminists and so-called white feminists. Why aren't there more women out here of all shades, of all backgrounds for these women? Why are we doing this alone?"

An article in Cosmopolitan said that the media consistently ignores the violence perpetrated against black women and girls as compared to the coverage given to white women and girls. The article concluded:

Mainstream media failed these women. The lack of coverage thwarted a national conversation about sexual violence as a distinct form of police brutality. The stories of these women need to serve as an important intervention in conversations about anti-black state violence, rape culture, and the vulnerability of sex workers, ex-offenders, and current and recovering drug addicts to state and state-sanctioned violence. This verdict and Holtzclaw's forthcoming sentencing are entry points for a more thoughtful, humane, and transformative national dialogue about police brutality and sexual violence. With or without mainstream media coverage, we need to continue talking about this trial and everything it represents.

Malkin seated next to Jenny Holtzclaw
Michelle Malkin (left) with Holtzclaw's sister, Jenny, in 2016

Holtzclaw's case was part of an Associated Press report in a yearlong examination of sexual assaults by police. The report found that approximately 1,000 police officers lost their licenses for sex crimes during a six-year period. Reporting in the case indicates that this may be an undercount due to inconsistencies in how different jurisdictions deal with and report problem officers.

In February 2016, website SB Nation published a lengthy profile of Holtzclaw that focused on his college football career. The piece was criticized as being apologetic and sympathetic to Holtzclaw; it was pulled within hours of publication. SB Nation subsequently suspended and later permanently shut down its long-form journalism program and cut ties with the freelance author responsible.

References

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