Blues for Phyllis Davis, Part Two.

As my regular readers probably know, we did an in depth dissection of the murder of Phyllis Davis-a blameless woman on her way home from work who drove into the middle of a gang war shootout between the city's nascent Bloods and Crips franchises.

Among the other desperadoes, one David Flores was convicted of the murder of Davis and has spent the last decade and more cooling his heels in Fort Madison.

It now appears that my predictions were more or less accurate back on January 30th of this year-which ought to convince any doubters that I was paying attention in law school even though to all the world it may have looked as if I was snoozing.

It seems that the witness interview taken by police investigating the murder of Rafael Robinson (as yet unsolved), in which the witness implicated Robinson in the murder and which was inadvertently not released to the defendant's attorney was enough of a Brady v. Maryland error to earn Flores a new trial.

It is said that Judge Nickerson also found the testimony of Robinson's then girlfriend Carla Harris credible and admissible in which she opined that Robinson admitted to the homicide shortly after it occurred. It is described as newly discovered evidence.

This, of course, stretches the definition of credibility like silly putty
, to wit, Carla Harris, an intimate associate of a known gang member in the hothouse atmosphere of a small midwestern city, knew absolutely nothing about the shootout and murder of Davis and kept her mouth shut for the last 13 years. It's quite possible she was more scared of being branded as a snitch than interested in bringing the facts to light.

I have not yet seen a copy of Nickerson's opinion and it is left unexplained why it took him five months to figure out how to apply Brady v. Maryland, but there you have it. The existence of the so called Trimble Report was well known to a number of people during the pendency of the Flores trial-and it was even known to an attorney who was in the Flores courtroom on behalf of one of his other clients.


Phyllis Davis took a bullet in the chest and drowned in her own blood in the middle of a busy downtown intersection in Des Moines.

Just so we keep our focus.

Here's what I garnered off ICIS, and while you're reading that I'll be trying to find the opinion.

THE COURT FINDS THAT THE "TRIMBLE REPORT" WAS

UNINTENTIONALLY OMITTED FROM DISCOVERY PROVIDED TO DEFENSE

COUNSEL, JOHN WELLMAN, PRIOR TO FLORES' ORIGINAL TRIAL AND

AS A RESULT THE DUE PROCESS RIGHTS OF DAVID FLORES WERE

VIOLATED/THE COURT FURTHER FINDS THAT THE 03/24/09 TESTIMONY

OF CARLA HARRIS IS ADMISSIBLE PURSUANT TO IA RULE OF

EVIDENCE, R.5.804(4) AND FURTHER FINDS THE HARRIS TESTIMONY

IS NEWLY DISCOVERED EVIDENCE, WHEN CONSIDERED W/THE TRIMBLE

REPORT COULD LEAD TO A DIFFERENT RESULT/THE COURT FURTHER

CONCLUDES THAT ITS FINDINGS SHOULD NOT BE INTERPRETED AS A

STMT OF INNOCENCE, RATHER, THAT FOR REASONS PREVIOUSLY

DISCUSSED, THE APPLICANT'S MOTION FOR POSTCONVICTION RELIEF

IS SUSTAINED AND HE SHOULD BE GRANTED A NEW TRIAL