Texas Federal Judge Overturns Death-Row Prisoner’s Conviction, Finding Now-Celebrity TV Host Hid Evidence of Misconduct

A fed­er­al dis­trict court judge has over­turned the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence of Texas death-row pris­on­er Ronald Prible, find­ing that celebri­ty ​“true crime” host Kelly Siegler (pic­tured) had engaged in exten­sive mis­con­duct as a Harris County homi­cide pros­e­cu­tor in Prible’s cap­i­tal tri­al in 2002. U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison grant­ed relief on six sep­a­rate claims that Siegler hid excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence from the defense, pro­vid­ed undis­closed favors to prison infor­mants in exchange for them fab­ri­cat­ing false con­fes­sions, and vio­lat­ed Prible’s right to rep­re­sen­ta­tion by using prison infor­mants as agents of the pros­e­cu­tion to ille­gal­ly ques­tion him while he was in custody. 

Both of the key pieces of evi­dence against Prible – tes­ti­mo­ny by infor­mants who claimed he had con­fessed to the killing of five mem­bers of a fam­i­ly, and the fact that Prible’s semen was found in the adult female victim’s mouth – were taint­ed by pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct. The rul­ing gave the state 180 days to retry Prible or release him, but the state has indi­cat­ed it might appeal the deci­sion to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. 

Prible was con­vict­ed of the 1999 killings of his friend, Steve Herrera, Herrera’s fiancee, Nilda Tirado, and the couple’s three daugh­ters. He was ini­tial­ly ques­tioned because he was the last per­son known to have seen the fam­i­ly alive, but police found no evi­dence to indi­cate that he had shot the par­ents or set the fire that killed the chil­dren. During his ques­tion­ing, he admit­ted that he had com­mit­ted bank rob­beries and kept some of the mon­ey at the family’s home, sug­gest­ing that some­one else who knew about the mon­ey may have robbed the vic­tims. He also told police he was hav­ing a con­sen­su­al affair with Tirado and that they had engaged in oral sex the night before the mur­ders. Prible was charged with the bank rob­beries, pled guilty, and was sent to FCI Beaumont, a federal prison. 

Two years after the killings, Siegler was assigned to the cold mur­der case. She was already work­ing with prison infor­mants at Beaumont on an unre­lat­ed case and enlist­ed them in her efforts to extract a con­fes­sion from Prible. Siegler did not dis­close her com­mu­ni­ca­tions with the infor­mants to Prible’s attor­neys or the ben­e­fits they received for assist­ing the prosecution. 

Informant tes­ti­mo­ny proved essen­tial to Prible’s 2002 con­vic­tion: Judge Ellison described tes­ti­mo­ny from infor­mant Michael Beckcom as ​“plain­ly the most com­pelling evi­dence that the jury heard at tri­al.” However, he said, that tes­ti­mo­ny would have under­mined sig­nif­i­cant­ly had the defense known of the hid­den rela­tion­ship between the infor­mants and the pros­e­cu­tion. ​“Not only could the defense have used this evi­dence to impeach the State’s star wit­ness,” Ellison wrote, ​“but indeed, it could have been used to uncov­er a broad, orches­trat­ed effort to man­u­fac­ture con­fes­sions against Prible and others.” 

Siegler also with­held evi­dence that the head of the Harris County Crime Lab had con­firmed that semen found in the vic­tim could have been deposit­ed up to 72 hours ear­li­er, con­sis­tent with Prible’s defense that he had con­sen­su­al sex with Tirado before the mur­der. Judge Ellison found that Siegler ​“inten­tion­al­ly and know­ing­ly with­held infor­ma­tion [from] the defense, was decep­tive about her efforts to do so, and was far from cred­i­ble in her fed­er­al court testimony.” 

In a state­ment, Prible’s attor­neys, Gretchen Scardino and James Rytting, said, ​“The case of Ronald Jeffery Prible should ter­ri­fy peo­ple because it shows just how much pow­er and dis­cre­tion a pros­e­cu­tor has and how lit­tle evi­dence a jury needs to con­vict an inno­cent per­son of cap­i­tal mur­der and sen­tence him to death. False jail­house infor­mant tes­ti­mo­ny and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct are two of the most com­mon caus­es of wrong­ful con­vic­tions in the United States, and there were plen­ty of both in this case, as the Court’s opin­ion makes clear.” 

According to the National Registry of Exonerations, 70% of homi­cide exon­er­a­tions involved per­jury or false accu­sa­tion and 71% involved offi­cial mis­con­duct. A DPIC analy­sis of death-row exon­er­a­tions from 2007 – 2017 found that false infor­mant tes­ti­mo­ny and offi­cial mis­con­duct were the lead­ing caus­es of wrong­ful con­vic­tions and death sen­tences. Official mis­con­duct was impli­cat­ed in 82.4% of cas­es and per­jury or false accu­sa­tion was involved in 76.5%.