The Dallas Police Department has completed an audit of 113 homicide cases, checking for evidence that may have been lost or deleted. However, details surrounding the scope of potentially affected cases remain scant, as reported by The Dallas Morning News.
Initially, the audit was to encompass all pending murder and capital murder cases dating back to 2016, which amounted to approximately 450 cases. In their limited release of information, officials have yet to clarify the current status of the remaining 337 cases. The department acknowledged the deletion of 572 out of 8,889 video files — without providing specifics about the content of those files. To fully grasp the extent of the issue, many want to further understand how the lost records will potentially impact pending cases.
"Given that it's been months, we need answers," Brandon Friedman, a member of the Dallas Community Police Oversight Board, said. "We should at least know with certainty how this record loss will impact criminal cases that affect every Dallas resident", per The Dallas Morning News.
In response to the crisis, the police and the DA's office have repeatedly stated that no evidence lost was material to the cases. Despite these claims, doubts persist among defense attorneys. Rebekah Perlstein, who has had a client affected by the missing evidence, said, "If something is deleted, lost, gone forever, you can't tell me what its characteristics are". She questions officials' ability to simply determine that the files weren't material without actually having them reviewed, according to The Dallas Morning News.
The Dallas County District Attorney’s Office acknowledged the scale of the potential impact, citing the Dallas Police as its "largest filing agency". They’ve admitted to lacking the personnel or capacity to proactively review each case filed during the relevant period and created a procedure for defense attorneys to request case reviews for missing or deleted evidence, as per NBC DFW.
