Where have all the emails gone?

There is a concept in the law called “spoliation.” It’s a fancy word for destroying things either negligently or on purpose.

In Daniel’s case, Oklahoma City has admitted it destroyed Oklahoma City Police Department (OCPD) forensic analyst Elaine Taylor's work  email account within 60 days of her retirement on February 3, 2017— a retirement that occurred just two days after Daniel filed his direct appeal. This destruction of potentially exculpatory evidence during pending appellate proceedings and ongoing civil litigation seems to be the dictionary definition of systemic spoliation that violated Daniel’s constitutional rights. 

The city destroyed lead Detective Kim Davis’s e-mails in a similar manner.

If not for local Oklahoma City media using the Open Records Act and reporting on these e-mail deletions in July and September 2017, this destruction would likely have never come to light.

What is the State trying to hide in the Holtzclaw case e-mails and why have they gone to such great lengths to hide it?

TIMELINE OF AN E-MAIL COVER-UP

Here is a chronology of events showing how Oklahoma City destroyed Taylor's email account when that evidence would have been valuable for appellate review, and only undertook preservation measures after Daniel’s defense counsel discovered and challenged the deletion through a formal motion:

• July 2013, OCPD issues its Operations Manual, 4th edition, which declares that “Law enforcement operations in a free society must not be shrouded in secrecy. It is necessary that there be full public disclosure of policies and openness in matters of public interest” [OCPD Operations Manual 360.0].

  
  

• February 1, 2017: Daniel's direct appeal is filed with the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA) . A central issue is the misinterpretation of DNA evidence by Taylor.

  
  

• February 3, 2017: Taylor officially retires from OCPD after 27 years of service​.

  
  

• March-April 2017: Taylor's entire OCPD email account is deleted pursuant to "long-standing Oklahoma City policy" approximately 60 days after retirement​.

  
  

• June 1, 2017: OCPD Communications Director Juan F. Balderrama issues a written statement falsely assuring the public that “there is no report in our system indicating that evidence in the Holtzclaw case has been destroyed” [C36]. That statement is untrue, since Taylor’s email account had already been destroyed.

  
  

• June 26-27, 2017: Secret ex parte hearing (Daniel and his lawyer excluded!) conducted in district court regarding Taylor's trial testimony.

  
  

• July 2017: Media reports reveal for the first time that Taylor's emails had been deleted​.

  
  

• August 2, 2017: Defense files Motion to Preserve Evidence after learning of deletion through news reports​.

  
  

• August 9, 2017: City Attorney Richard Smith sends letter to defense counsel confirming deletion​.

  
  

• September 15, 2017: State's response filed, acknowledging deletion while explaining that emails aren’t evidence and describing post-motion preservation efforts; City Attorney sends updated letter reporting recovery of 5,149 emails and 298 attachments from Taylor's personal workstation [letter from Richard Smith to James Lockard, September 15, 2017]​.

  
  

• September 19, 2017: Smith sends letter to journalists with an “update” on recently discovered emails.

  
  

• September 20, 2017: Defense reply filed, noting preservation efforts were reactive response to motion [Reply to State’s response to appellant’s motion for order to preserve evidence, September 20, 2017]​.

  
  

• June 12, 2018: OCCA denies motion as "moot.”​

  
  

This sequence establishes critical facts demonstrating bad faith or, at minimum, gross negligence rising to a constitutional violation. The State permitted the destruction of Taylor’s email account during a pending appeal and less than two months before confidential hearings convened to evaluate her trial testimony, thereby ensuring that the very materials most probative of her professional integrity were unavailable to the defense or the court.

A CLOSER LOOK AT THE E-MAIL RABBIT HOLE 

While the State's belated recovery efforts located some emails on Taylor's local workstation, the comparison between what was destroyed and what was recovered reveals the magnitude of the spoliation:

What was destroyed:

• Taylor's complete OCPD email account spanning her entire 27-year career (1990-2017).

• All emails sent to or received from her official OCPD email address.

• All server-based email communications with prosecutors, investigators, laboratory supervisors, and other analysts.

• All email correspondence from June 2014 (when the investigation of Daniel  began) through February 2017 (when Taylor retired).

• Any emails Taylor deleted from her local machine before retirement but which remained on the OCPD server.

  
  

What was recovered:

• 5,149 emails from Taylor's personal workstation only, covering March 2016-February 2017​.

• 298 attachments from the same local workstation​.

• More than 1,500 "read/unread receipts" dating back to January 2011​.

• Unknown quantity of emails "captured on the accounts of current Oklahoma City employees" through fortuitous copying​.

  
  

The recovered emails represent only a fraction of Taylor's complete email archive. All emails prior to March 2016 were destroyed.

BIZARRO WORLD: OKLAHOMA CITY DECLARES THAT EMAILS ARE NOT EVIDENCE  

The State's September 15, 2017, response articulated a position that reveals profound misunderstanding of its constitutional obligations: "One category of material identified by the defendant – emails and other correspondence – has never been considered 'evidence' or even possible evidence in this case."​

This assertion is legally untenable and contradicts established federal law, Department of Justice policy, and basic constitutional law:

• The Department of Justice explicitly instructs federal prosecutors that forensic analyst emails constitute discoverable material. DOJ guidance issued January 5, 2017—about three months before Taylor’s email account was destroyed—references emails explicitly. [Memorandum for Heads of Department Components / Supplemental Guidance for Prosecutors Regarding Criminal Discovery Involving Forensic Evidence and Experts (January 5, 2017)].​

  
  

• §9-5.001 of the United States Attorney's Manual likewise describes the Department's policy for disclosure of exculpatory and impeachment material. It contains explicit language about “emails, inserts, electronic communications” being part of the investigative file that “should be reviewed for discoverable information.” 

  
  

• The State's Position Contradicts Its Own Discovery Motion Response. The prosecution's position is particularly remarkable given that the defense's August 21, 2015, Motion for Discovery explicitly requested "analysts' complete case files, including bench notes, correspondence, and accreditation results."​ The term "correspondence" plainly encompasses email communications. The State's 2017 assertion that emails were "never considered 'evidence'" directly contradicts this request.

HEY, OKC: YOU CAN’T JUST DELETE THE CONSTITUTION

The State defended the deletion by invoking "long-standing Oklahoma City policy upon an employee's retirement.” This defense reveals systematic institutional failure to recognize that Brady/Giglio preservation duties override routine document retention policies.​

• The Policy: Automatic Deletion After 60 Days. According to the affidavit of Schad Meldrum, Director of Information Technology for Oklahoma City: 

"After a City employee's service is discontinued, the regular user account for that now-former City employee is deleted after 60 days. At this point the users email account is 'orphaned' or effectively deleted. Terminated employee email is retained and discoverable for a period of sixty (60) days from that point. However, if the terminated employee's email account has a litigation hold then the email account is maintained in an inactive state to preserve the email record” [Meldrum affidavit].  

This policy acknowledges that litigation holds can preserve email accounts of terminated employees. Yet no litigation hold was placed on Taylor's account despite:

1. Daniel's appeal being filed two days before her retirement.

2. Forensic issues being the subject of appellate briefing.

3. An outstanding August 2015 discovery request for forensic analyst correspondence.

4. Taylor being the State's sole forensic witness whose testimony was central to the conviction.

The failure to place a litigation hold on Taylor's email account—despite these circumstances—constitutes gross negligence at minimum, and more likely demonstrates willful blindness to preservation obligations. 

MORE HIDE-AND-SEEK: WHERE ARE KIM DAVIS’S E-MAILS?

The destruction of Taylor's email account was not an isolated incident but part of a systematic institutional failure to preserve material evidence from key State witnesses. Det. Kim Davis—one of two lead detectives in Daniel's case—retired on July 31, 2016, six months before Taylor [Davis dep. at 9]. Under the same "long-standing Oklahoma City policy" that destroyed Taylor's emails approximately 60 days after retirement, Det. Davis's email account was deleted in late September or early October 2016—while Daniel's conviction was on direct appeal and while post-conviction challenges were foreseeable (Richard Smith letter to Michelle Malkin, August 21, 2017). In civil discovery, the City produced only one email from Det. Davis even though Det. Davis acknowledged routine use of email:

Q: Did you ever send any emails referencing the Holtzclaw case? 

A: Sure. 

Q: Are those interdepartmental or how does that work? 

A: Well, it would have only been to people in the department -- like I would send an email to Elaine with a DNA request or I might send her an email, where are we at on this case, or, you know, stuff like that. 

Q: Would you send emails to other police officers? 

A: Oh, yeah. Like I would send an email to -- I can remember sending an email to Boxwell because I needed him to look at FI cards from certain dates. And it was easier for me to send an email, can you pull these FI cards and see if there is anything like that. Because if you have dates -- so he could look at it. I know I sent Clint Teel emails. And I would send emails to pull activity cards. Because the activity cards -- like Holtzclaw's activity cards were kept at Springlake Station, so I would send a lieutenant, can you pull me copies of these activity cards and send me a copy. [Davis dep. 134-5].

Just as with Taylor, no litigation hold was placed on Det. Davis's email account despite clear indicators that preservation was constitutionally required.

Det. Davis was a lead detective who supervised multiple complainants, including Jannie Ligons, Sherry Ellis, and Adaira Gardner. She testified extensively at trial, and made critical investigative decisions that shaped the entire prosecution. Her destroyed email account likely would have contained precisely the kind of material impeachment and exculpatory evidence that the State is obligated to preserve and disclose: communications pertaining to the "last shot" pressure campaign, correspondence about generating assault dates, evidence of witness inducements, discussions about suppressing photo lineups, communications about the "victim-generating" investigation, and discussions regarding Det. Davis's understanding (or lack thereof) of constitutional obligations under Brady.

The destruction of Det. Kim Davis's email account, occurring six months before Taylor's and pursuant to the same automatic deletion policy applied without constitutional assessment, amplifies every violation detailed in the Taylor spoliation analysis. It transforms what might have been characterized as a single instance of negligence into proof of systematic institutional indifference—or deliberate suppression.