Officer(s) Involved: Oklahoma City Police Department patrol officer Daniel Ken Hotzclaw, born 10 December 1986.
Synopsis: Holtzclaw was arrested on 21 August 2014, after being accused of sexually assaulting multiple women. The arrest followed an investigation that uncovered evidence of a pattern of abuse, with Holtzclaw targeting women in low-income neighborhoods.
The initial incident that led to Holtzclaw’s arrest occurred around 2:00 a.m. on 18 June 2014, when he made a traffic stop without reporting to police dispatch, running a records check, or revealing that he had logged off his patrol car computer.
The driver, Jannie Ligons, a 57-year-old woman, was passing through the area and was not poor or known to the police, unlike other women Holtzclaw had allegedly accosted. Ligons reported that Holtzclaw forced her to perform oral sex on him and made her lift her shirt and pull down her pants.
Before his arrest, Holtzclaw was interrogated by detectives who believed he was being untruthful based on previous evidence and statements made by his girlfriend. Although he was released after the interrogation, his commission and entry cards, uniform, badges, firearms, radio, and keys to his police vehicle were seized, and he was placed on indefinite paid administrative leave.
After further investigation, 13 women came forward with accusations of sexual assault, leading to Holtzclaw’s arrest and charges of 36 counts of sexual abuse offenses, including rape, sexual battery, and forcible oral sodomy.
The earliest incident discovered was from 20 December 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 again 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 on Holtzclaw. “I didn’t think that no one would believe me,” she testified at a pretrial hearing. “I feel like all police will work together.”
Holtzclaw, who had been on paid administrative leave until he was charged in August 2014, was fired in January 2015 and his trial began on 2 November 2015. He faced 36 charges, including sexual battery, assault, forcible oral sodomy, and stalking, and pleaded not guilty to all charges.
On 10 December 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 20 January 2016. The request was immediately denied by the judge.
Outcome: Holtclaw was sentenced on 21 January 2016, to 263 years in prison, which is effectively a life sentence. Holtzclaw has since claimed that he was wrongfully convicted and has been fighting to regain his freedom.
Soon after his sentencing, all of Holtzclaw’s information was removed from the Oklahoma Department of Corrections (ODOC) website. The website shows data on a criminal’s offense(s), mug shots, and jail location.
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 under an alias in an undisclosed Oklahoma state prison.
In a unanimous opinion on 1 August 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.
The opinion rejected allegations of a “circus atmosphere,” noting that the jury returned not guilty verdicts on half of the charges. In his concurrence, Presiding Judge David B. Lewis referred to Holtzclaw as a “sexual predator.” In their public condemnation of the ruling, Holtzclaw’s family and supporters called Lewis’ description a “vicious and false assertion.”
On 9 March 2020, Holtzclaw’s petition for a writ of certiorari was denied by the Supreme Court of the United States.
