NC civil rights trial: Did a detective withhold info about confidential informant?
A former Durham police captain told a jury in a federal civil rights lawsuit he believes an officer gave a Durham detective information he is now accused of withholding.
Paul Martin was a captain who oversaw criminal informants in the Durham Police Department when it investigated a mother and daughter found dead, naked and strangled in a Durham apartment set on fire in 1991, and the subsequent double murder and arson conviction of Darryl Howard in 1995.
Martin left the department in 1996 and started working for the Durham County Sheriff’s Office, where he was a major before he retired in 2018.
Howard was sentenced to 80 years in prison after a 1995 jury trial. He was released in 2016 when a Durham judge vacated his conviction after he spent 23 years incarcerated. The judge cited police and prosecutorial misconduct. Gov. Roy Cooper pardoned Howard in April.
In 2017, Howard filed a federal civil rights lawsuit accusing the city of Durham, officers and fire officials of violating his right to a fair a trial. Over time the defendants were narrowed to former Detective Darrell Dowdy, the lead investigator who retired in 2007.
Howard contends that Dowdy, now 65, made up and withheld evidence.
Tuesday marked the sixth day of testimony in the federal courtroom in Winston-Salem, with Dowdy testifying for much of that time.
Confidential informant, gang ties
One of the three aspects of Dowdy’s investigation the jury is being asked to consider is whether the detective failed to disclose that a key witness was a confidential informant who had ties to a gang that Howard contends killed Doris Washington, 29, and her daughter Nishonda, 13.
Such information must be disclosed to criminal defendants because it could affect a witness’s credibility.
The other two questions jurors must consider are whether Dowdy fabricated a statement from a witness who said she was with Howard the night of the killing and whether he fabricated evidence about the teen having consensual sex to explain why he didn’t think she was sexually assaulted.
Howard, who has maintained his innocence, contends the Washingtons were raped and killed by members of the New York Boys after some of the gang’s drugs went missing at Doris Washington’s apartment.
Dowdy contends multiple witnesses linked Howard to the killings. He said he never investigated the killings as a sexual assault because the medical examiner didn’t mention it in reports, and he believes that semen found on the teen was from consensual sex with her boyfriend.
Roneka Jackson
The mother and daughter lived in Few Gardens, a crime-ridden public housing complex that has since been leveled. Many of the witnesses in the trial, including Howard, were selling and using drugs and gave statements after they were arrested.
Roneka Jackson, who was 17, volunteered information about the murders after she was arrested on unrelated charges three days after the Washingtons were killed, according to court testimony.
In her first statement, Jackson said she saw Howard threaten Washington and her daughter the afternoon before the murder. Howard was upset because his girlfriend was in Washington’s apartment, and he thought she was encouraging her to exchange sexual favors for drugs there, Jackson told Dowdy, Dowdy testified. She indicated a woman was in the apartment but never came out.
Jackson also said she saw Howard and his brother carry a TV and VCR from Washington’s apartment later that night and smoke coming from the apartment 15 minutes later.
A year later, Dowdy interviewed Jackson again. During that interview, she identified Howard, his brother and Angela Oliver, a witness who had just come forward saying she was with Howard the night he killed the mother and daughter and witnessed him beating her and coming out afterward.
Howard, who contends Dowdy fabricated Oliver’s statement and Jackson’s second statement, was charged with the murder and arrested the day after Jackson’s second statement.
Dowdy said he planned to recommend that Jackson receive a $10,000 reward for her testimony, but she never received the money.
In the months after the trial, Jackson was found in a New York dumpster with a broken neck, doused in gasoline and set on fire. The New York Boys were responsible, according to testimony.
Jackson’s ties to New York Boys
Dowdy said he didn’t find out Jackson was a confidential informant with links to the New York Boys, including having a child with one, until after her death.
Howard’s legal team contends he knew since one of Jackson’s police handlers was Robby Davis, who testified at Howard’s trial on the same day as Jackson.
During the investigation and trial, Martin oversaw Durham police officers’ work with nearly 200 confidential informants, who received money for helping police with information or drug buys.
Martin testified Wednesday that two officers, including Davis, worked with Jackson. Jackson had been a confidential informant since at least 1994 and possibly earlier and was paid to provide information on the New York Boys, he said.
Martin said it was the department’s practice to tell prosecutors when a witness was a confidential informant. “It is extremely important because it affects the evidence that is given in the case,” he said.
It’s also important because confidential informants can be in danger once their status is revealed, he said.
Martin said Davis knew he needed to tell Dowdy that Jackson was a confidential informant if Davis knew Jackson was testifying at trial.
“Do you think he would have reported it to Dowdy?” Amelia Green, one of Howard’s attorneys, asked Martin.
“Yes,” he said.
During cross examination from Dowdy’s attorney Nick Ellis, Martin acknowledged that he didn’t have direct knowledge of whether Davis told Dowdy or that Davis knew that Jackson had testified. He also said he didn’t remember how much, how many times and what cases Jackson was paid for in the case that was nearly 30 years ago.
“I don’t have an exact memory but she was paid,” Martin testified.
Testimony will continue Thursday.
