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Man’s D.C. Gun Conviction Overturned Because Prosecutors Failed to Turn Over Police Radio Recording

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A federal prosecutor’s “illogical argument” regarding a missing snippet of a police radio broadcast led the D.C. Court of Appeals to overturn Carlton Henderson III’s convictions on multiple charges related to illegal gun possession this month.

The case, which started with Henderson’s arrest in 2017, has been winding its way through the local court system since then, including two trips to the Court of Appeals. A three judge panel issued a ruling earlier this month overturning his convictions and striking the testimony of the arresting officer as a sanction for the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s “gross negligence” in locating a key recording of a police radio transmission. By the time prosecutors checked with the Office of Unified Communication, which maintains such data, the three-year retention schedule had expired, and the recording was deleted.

“The suppression hearing transcript shows that the prosecutor failed to take steps he should have taken to obtain the recording of Officer Thomas’ broadcast, actively disregarded evidence that it was missing, and sowed confusion in the wake of his negligence,” Associate Judge Catherine Easterly wrote in the October 2023 opinion.

Here is what happened, according to court records:

Metropolitan Police Department Officer Kirkland Thomas was on his lunch break in the 2400 block of Alabama Avenue SE in June of 2017 when a tipster flagged him down to report that they had seen a man with a gun in his pants near Eddie Leonard’s Carryout. Thomas, who was working on the Seventh District Crime Suppression Team, says he broadcast the information over the radio, including a description of the suspect.



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