Former Houston Drug Cop Convicted of Murder After His Lies Resulted in Two Deaths
The jury accepted the prosecution's argument that Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas died because of Gerald Goines' fraudulent search warrant affidavit.
A jury on Wednesday convicted former Houston narcotics officer Gerald Goines of two murder charges for instigating a January 2019 drug raid that killed a middle-aged couple, Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas, he falsely accused of selling heroin. Goines admitted that he lied in the affidavit supporting the no-knock search warrant that authorized him and his colleagues to break into the couple's home, describing a heroin purchase that never happened.
The prosecution argued that Goines' lies made him criminally responsible for the deaths of Tuttle and Nicholas, who were killed after Goines and several other officers broke down the front door and immediately shot the couple's dog. Tuttle, who according to prosecutors was napping in a bedroom at the time, reacted to the tumult and gunfire by grabbing a revolver and shooting at the intruders, injuring four of them, including Goines. The cops responded with a hail of at least 40 bullets, killing Tuttle and Nicholas, who was unarmed but allegedly looked like she was about to grab a gun from an injured officer.
The two murder charges against Goines were based on a statute that applies when someone "commits or attempts to commit a felony" and "in the course of and in furtherance of the commission or attempt…commits or attempts to commit an act clearly dangerous to human life that causes the death of an individual." That charge was inappropriate in this case, the defense argued, because Goines' underlying felony—producing the fraudulent search warrant affidavit—did not cause the deaths of Tuttle and Nicholas, which they brought on themselves.
"This case is overcharged," defense attorney Mac Secrest told the jury during closing arguments on Tuesday. "It should never have been charged [as] felony murder," he said while pointing at the prosecutors. "It got amped up to it because of the politics in their office, because of the media outcry, the pressure."
Goines' lawyers argued that Tuttle and Nicholas would still be alive if they had surrendered instead of resisting. While the prosecution emphasized that the cops fired first, Secrest emphasized that Tuttle fired "the first shot at a human being" (as opposed to the dog). "These officers didn't fire upon anyone until they were fired upon themselves," he said. "Nobody shot at Dennis Tuttle until he started putting bullets into peoples' faces and necks."
Although the officers were not wearing uniforms, Goines' lawyers argued that the word police on their tactical gear should have made it clear who they were. The defense also claimed the cops verbally identified themselves as police officers, although the existing audio record does not reflect that.
According to the account that Art Acevedo, then Houston's police chief, gave at a press conference the night of the raid, the cops "announced themselves as Houston police officers while simultaneously breaching the front door." Within seconds, they had killed the dog. It would be undestandable if Nicholas and Tuttle missed any announcement amid the violence and confusion—a possibility that Jeff Wolf, a Texas ranger who investigated the incident, noted during his testimony.
"Mr. Tuttle reacted as anybody would, any normal person, hearing guns ring out in their house, their doors blown in, his wife on the couch, the dog is dead in the living room," Harris County Assistant District Attorney Keaton Forcht said during his opening statement two weeks ago. "He grabs his pistol and comes storming out." Forcht argued that Goines therefore was "legally responsible for every shot in that house, whether it was from officers or Dennis Tuttle."
Forcht reiterated that point during his closing argument. "Everything that happened in that house, everything, flowed directly from that warrant," he said. Because of Goines' dishonesty, he argued, "those two individuals are now dead."
After deliberating for about eight hours on Tuesday and Wednesday, the jurors accepted that framing, rejecting the defense's claim that Goines' victims were the real aggressors. The jury is scheduled to return on Thurday morning to consider the appropriate penalty.
The murder charges are punishable by five years to life in prison. The jury also convicted Goines of tampering with a governmental record, a felony punishable by two to 10 years in prison.
Goines targeted Tuttle and Nicholas based on 911 calls from a neighbor, Patricia Garcia, who described them as armed and dangerous drug dealers who had sold her daughter heroin. Garcia, who did not even have a daughter, later admitted she had made the whole thing up, pleading guilty to federal charges related to her false reports.
In his search warrant affidavit, Goines claimed a confidential informant had bought heroin from a man at 7815 Harding Street, where Tuttle and Nicholas had lived for two decades. Goines later confessed he had invented that transaction, although he claimed he personally had bought heroin at the house the evening before the raid. Prosecutors showed that was not true either, presenting evidence that Goines was 20 miles away from the house at the time of the alleged drug purchase and had not visited the location that day.
Goines also faces seemingly redundant federal charges in connection with the Harding Street raid. "While acting under color of law," according to a November 2019 indictment, Goines "prepared an affidavit for a search warrant that contained numerous material false statements, presented that affidavit to a State of Texas judicial officer, swore under oath to the truthfulness of the contents of that affidavit, obtained a search warrant based on that affidavit from that judicial officer," and "executed that search warrant."
In doing so, the indictment says, Goines "willfully depriv[ed] Dennis Tuttle of the right, secured and protected by the Constitution and laws of the United States, for people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures." That offense "involved the use, attempted use and threatened use of a dangerous weapon" and "resulted in the death of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas."
In addition to the criminal charges, Goines faces federal civil rights lawsuits filed by relatives of Tuttle and Nicholas. One of those lawsuits also names Acevedo as a defendant.
Goines' lies in this case were part of what Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg described as a "pattern of deceit" going back more than a decade. The Harding Street raid prompted Ogg's office to re-examine some 1,400 drug cases involving Goines, a 34-year veteran who had a habit of framing suspects by inventing drug purchases. "The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has overturned at least 22 convictions linked to Goines," the Associated Press reports.
Acevedo, who initially hailed Goines as a "hero," has insisted that the Harding Street raid did not reflect "a systemic problem with the Houston Police Department." But Ogg saw things differently. "Houston Police narcotics officers falsified documentation about drug payments to confidential informants with the support of supervisors," she said in July 2020. "Goines and others could never have preyed on our community the way they did without the participation of their supervisors; every check and balance in place to stop this type of behavior was circumvented."
