Glenn Goines, 59, a former Houston police officer who led a 2019 deadly drug raid so riddled with problems that it triggered a police probe revealing systemic corruption within the police department’s narcotics unit, has won a legal victory on Tuesday after a judge dismissed two murder charges he had been facing in the case, the Associated Press reports. State District Judge Veronica Nelson dismissed two indictments for murder, after his lawyers successfully argued that prosecutors had used the underlying charge of tampering with a government record to indict him for murder.
Goines had been slotted for trial in June on two counts of murder in the January 2019 deaths of Dennis Tuttle, 59, and his wife, Rhogena Nicholas, 58. Prosecutors allege Goines had lied to obtain a search warrant by making up a confidential informant and wrongly portraying the couple as dangerous heroin dealers. This led to a deadly encounter in which Tuttle and Nicholas and their dog were fatally shot and police only found small amounts of marijuana and cocaine in the house. The deadly drug raid prompted Houston police to stop using “no-knock” warrants, which allow officers to enter a home without announcing themselves. Plus, since the raid, prosecutors have been reviewing thousands of cases handled by the narcotics unit. To date, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has overturned 22 convictions linked to Goines.