Attorney Ben Munda

Benjamin Munda is lead post-conviction counsel for Daniel. A former Oklahoma County Public Defender and current partner at Overman Legal Group, Mr. Munda brings a unique background in chemical engineering to the case. He has personally reviewed sealed appellate materials and newly discovered evidence and is committed to demonstrating that Daniel was wrongfully convicted and denied a fair trial.

 

He recently gave a speech explaining how he came to be involved in Daniel’s case:

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Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Ben Munda, and I have the honor and privilege of representing Daniel Holtzclaw.

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Just to tell you a little bit about myself: I’ve been practicing law for over thirteen years, and criminal law exclusively for the last ten. I became aware of this case very early in my career. I joined the Oklahoma County Public Defender’s Office in the fall of 2015, and this was the first major trial I was able to observe, as it took place just after I started.

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If you weren’t there at the time, it’s very difficult to describe the atmosphere surrounding this case. It was a tense period in this country. Black Lives Matter protests were taking place throughout the nation, including here in Oklahoma City, and that context mattered given the nature of the accusations in this case.

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I want to take you back to the second floor of the Oklahoma County Courthouse. It was a madhouse. It had the atmosphere of a mob or a circus. It was standing room only—loud, raucous, and chaotic. Cameras from local and national news outlets were everywhere. It was completely incompatible with the decorum and solemnity that I would expect from a courtroom.

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Not only that, but there were protests just outside the courthouse—directly outside the windows of the courtroom where Daniel’s trial was taking place. The chanting of “lock him up” was so loud that, at times, the trial had to be paused because the attorneys themselves could not hear the testimony. The chants echoed all the way up to the second floor, loud enough that the judge had to stop proceedings and instruct the jury not to let it influence their decision.

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At the time, I knew nothing about the case other than the general nature of the accusations. Even then, it struck me as deeply unfair that a conviction could take place in that type of atmosphere.

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This case also drew my attention because of my later adversarial relationship with Judge Timothy Henderson. During a murder trial I handled in 2021, it came to light that Judge Henderson had been engaged in secret sexual relationships with prosecutors in the district attorney’s office.

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That, too, has always struck me as deeply unfair.

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So when Daniel’s family reached out to me, I was eager to become involved. Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to get to know Daniel personally and to visit him in prison multiple times.

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It would take far too long to go through all 20,000-plus pages of documents and detail every reason I believe this conviction was unjust. But one of the most significant recent developments arose on appeal, where serious questions were raised about the integrity and validity of the DNA evidence in this case—what little physical evidence there was that allegedly tied Daniel to any of the accusers.

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During the appellate process, it became apparent that there were serious problems with both the testing and the analyst involved. As a result, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals ordered a hearing to address these issues.

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That hearing was held in secret.

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The videos later confirmed that Daniel’s defense attorneys were not present, and news reports revealed that they were not even notified of the hearings until after they had concluded.

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No one at the courthouse could understand how something like that could happen—how a hearing addressing critical evidence could be held without Daniel or his attorneys present to contest it or participate in any way. To this day, I still don’t understand how that occurred. And yet, it did.

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For the first time in more than ten years, I—along with a forensic expert—have now been permitted to review those materials. I want to be clear: those documents remain under seal, and I am prohibited from discussing their contents at this time. I hope that changes.

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What I can say is this: I found those materials to be incredibly helpful to Daniel’s case. When they eventually become public, they will demonstrate just how flawed his trial was and how wrong his conviction is.

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And it doesn’t stop there. A substantial amount of new evidence has emerged through open records requests and civil discovery. All of it reinforces my original conclusion: Daniel did not receive a fair trial.

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Everything I have seen reaffirms my belief that Daniel Holtzclaw is factually innocent, and we look forward to the day when we can finally demonstrate that in a court of law.

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