A white prosecutor has been removed from his post two decades after withholding evidence that could have prevented two formerly incarcerated Black men from spending 14 years in prison.  

Richard E. “Rick” Jackson's license was revoked on April 13 after he failed to hand over evidence to both men’s defense attorneys that could have cleared them from capital murder in 2000, The Washington Post reported.

The order from the State Bar stated the decision would be in Jackson’s best interest.  

His attorney, Bob Hinton, said Jackson preferred to resign his license as opposed to paying the money required to defend it.   

“If he had the financial wherewithal and he fought it, we would win it,” Hinton told the Morning News. “There’s no question in my mind.”

In 1999, a pastor, Rev. Jesse Borns Jr., was stabbed 47 times at his leather and woodworking store. Stanley Mozee, who would sweep the store for an allowance, and Dennis Allen, were both experiencing homelessness at the time. They were among a list of suspects and were eventually tried for Borns' murder, ABC News reported. The following year they were given life sentences. 

Appeals court documents show that Jackson and the other prosecutors made secret deals with informants for favorable testimony to win their case. He was fired from his job in 2006 and later retired in 2013.    

An early investigation revealed that the men maintained their innocence and were not given a proper fair trial. As a result, they were exonerated from prison in 2014, The New York Times reported. 

“I knew the truth would come to light,” Mozee said at the time. “I hold no animosity toward anyone.”

Investigations by the Innocence Project, a nonprofit legal organization, the Innocence Project of Texas and the Dallas County District Attorney’s office later found that the evidence to prove their innocence had been in the possession of Jackson.

“Much of that evidence was in the trial prosecutor’s own files, but was hidden from the defense until the district attorney’s office adopted an ‘open file’ policy years after Mozee and Allen’s trials,” the Innocence Project said. 

Jackson, who had spent 17 years as a prosecutor in Dallas County, has since denied withholding any form of evidence in the case. 

But it wouldn’t be just prosecutorial misconduct that would set Mozee and Allen free. In 2018, their convictions were thrown out and in 2019, they were finally declared innocent after confirmation from lengthy DNA testing.

The district attorney’s office later found a file containing witness testimony stating that one of the men present at the pastor’s shop had a facial scar, which neither Mozee or Allen had.   

Attorneys for both men have celebrated Jackson’s recent disbarment as a rare but special occasion of prosecutorial accountability. According to a study by the National Registry of Exonerations, prosecutors like Jackson seldom face serious consequences for their misconduct as more than half of wrongfully convicted defendants have been victimized. 

Nina Morrison, an Innocence Project lawyer who helped clear the two men, called the moment long overdue in a retweet of a post from the Innocence Project on Twitter.

“We worked for over a decade to uncover the evidence hidden by former ADA Jackson and free our clients from their life sentences. And it took two more years for him to be held accountable,” she said.

“This is someone who repeatedly and intentionally hid favorable evidence from two defendants who were on trial for their lives,” Morrison added. 

According to ABC News, the person who murdered Borns was never caught.  

Dallas, TexasThe-Innocence-Project