Texas Prosecutors Drop Death Penalty Against African American Man Held Eight Years Without Trial in Death of White Police Officer During Botched No-Knock Raid

Bell County pros­e­cu­tors have dropped their efforts to impose the death penal­ty on Marvin Guy (pic­tured), an African American man who has been held eight years with­out tri­al in con­nec­tion with the death of a white police offi­cer dur­ing a botched no-knock raid in Killeen, Texas in May 2014. 

In the pre-dawn hours of May 9, 2022, a SWAT team from the Killeen Police Department ignit­ed a flash grenade and broke a win­dow attempt­ing, unan­nounced, to enter Guy’s res­i­dence to serve a war­rant to search for cocaine. Guy fired out the win­dow at what he told the Washington Post pod­cast Broken Doors he believed were intrud­ers attempt­ing to rob or kill him. Police returned a hail of gun­fire, and dur­ing the shoot­ing, four police offi­cers were struck by bul­lets. Two days lat­er, Killeen police Detective Charles ​“Chuck” Dinwiddie died from his wounds.

Prosecutors charged Guy with cap­i­tal mur­der and sought the death penal­ty. He is impris­oned pre-tri­al on $4 mil­lion bond. Guy main­tains that police acci­den­tal­ly shot Dinwiddie dur­ing the raid. No drugs were found in the search of Guy’s house. 

“This no-knock raid should’ve nev­er hap­pened, and Marvin should not have been arrest­ed,” PJ Martinez, Texas Campaigns Director of the Grassroots Law Project said.

While Guy no longer faces the death penal­ty, pros­e­cu­tors con­tin­ue to seek a cap­i­tal mur­der con­vic­tion and life sen­tence against him.

Less than six months before the botched raid on Guy’s house, cen­tral Texas police in Burleson County threw a flash grenade and tried to kick in the door to enter the res­i­dence of Henry ​“Hank” Magee dur­ing anoth­er drug-relat­ed no-knock raid. Magee grabbed his semi-auto­mat­ic rifle and fired it towards the door, killing SWAT office Sergeant Adam Sowders. Police found drugs in Magee’s res­i­dence. Prosecutors charged him with cap­i­tal mur­der, but a grand jury refused to indict, effec­tive­ly deter­min­ing that Magee had act­ed in self-defense.

In an October 2014 arti­cle in Mother Jones reporter Shane Bauer wrote the cas­es raised ​“trou­bling ques­tions about race and ​‘no-knock’ police raids.” ​“The cas­es are remark­ably sim­i­lar, except for one thing,” Bauer observed: ​“Guy is black, Magee white.”

Killeen City offi­cials banned no-knock raids in 2021, two years after Killeen police shot James Reed to death and then tried to cov­er up their role in the killing. Officer Anthony Custance lied to inves­ti­ga­tors about his role in the shoot­ing before ulti­mate­ly plead­ing guilty to charges of tam­per­ing with evi­dence to try to make it appear he had not shot at Reed.

Guy has lan­guished in jail for more than eight years after fir­ing the pub­lic defend­ers office and two oth­er teams of court appoint­ed lawyers whom his sup­port­ers say were not aggres­sive­ly defend­ing his case. In April 2021, the Innocence Project of Texas entered its appear­ance on behalf of Guy, with its Executive Director Mike Ware serv­ing as lead coun­sel. Dallas crim­i­nal defense lawyer Justin A. Moore is serv­ing as sec­ond chair coun­sel. Trial in the case also has been delayed by the pandemic.