| On January 19, 2017, Officer Gerald Goines of the Houston Police Department in Texas arrested 38-year-old Shanta Renchie and charged her with delivery of a controlled substance. In court papers, Goines said that Renchie sold him $20 of cocaine.
Renchie pled guilty to the charge on March 15, 2017, and received a sentence of 90 days in jail, with credit for the time served awaiting trial.
On January 28, 2019, Goines led a raid on a home belonging to 59-year-old Dennis Tuttle and his 58-year-old wife, Rhogena Nicholas. Goines obtained a no-knock warrant after telling a judge that he had set up a controlled buy of narcotics there using a confidential informant. Goines, his partner, Steven Bryant, and other officers broke down the front door of the home and shot a dog that they said lunged at them, which prompted a gun fight. Tuttle and Nicholas were killed.
The Houston Police Department opened an investigation. When Goines’s informant could not be found, Goines eventually admitted there wasn’t an informant.
In April 2019, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office dismissed several dozen pending cases involving Goines and Bryant and began reviewing more than 2,200 cases the two officers handled throughout their careers.
In August 2019, Goines was charged with felony murder, and Bryant was charged with tampering with a government record after the raid. By then, Goines and Bryant had retired.
Goines was indicted by a federal grand jury in November 2019 on charges that he deprived Tuttle and Nicholas of their civil rights by killing them.
In February 2020, Houston District Attorney Kim Ogg said that a review by her office’s conviction integrity unit (CIU) of cases Goines played a substantial role in between 2008 and 2019, found 69 people, including Renchie, who might have been convicted on false evidence presented by Goines.
Renchie filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus on May 24, 2023. In an unsworn declaration accompanying the petition, Renchie said she did not sell drugs to Goines but pled guilty because it made no sense to fight and risk a harsher sentence.
“If I had known that Goines was making up charges against other people during the same time he was lying about me, I would not have pleaded guilty,” she said. Renchie said the conviction had enormous collateral consequences, making it difficult for her to find a job, get housing, and receive government assistance, such as food stamps.
The Harris County District Attorney’s Office supported her petition. On June 14, 2023, a judge recommended that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals grant Renchie’s habeas petition.
On August 23, 2023, the appellate court granted Renchie’s petition and said that there was a presumption that Goines used false evidence to justify Renchie’s arrest and that her plea was involuntary plea. The state dismissed her charge on September 22, 2023.
– Ken Otterbourg
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