The United States Supreme Court rejected to hear an appeal from former Oklahoma City cop Daniel Holtzclaw, who was convicted of raping and assaulting multiple, vulnerable Black women while patrolling the low-income neighborhoods, the Associated Press reports.
Holtzclaw, 33, is currently serving a 263-year sentence for his 18 convictions for rape and other sex crimes.
According to the Oklahoman, the serial rapist has taken issue arguing that prosecutors should not have allowed so many accusers against him at the same trial. He also accused prosecutors of misrepresenting DNA evidence.
“What the State really did is join weak cases with ones slightly less weak in the hope of convicting on all of them,” his attorney wrote in a petition, according to the report. “It strains credulity to believe that the State would have obtained the convictions that it did had the cases not been joined.”
Late last year, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals unanimously rejected Holtzclaw’s appeal. With the Supreme Court deciding not to hear his case, that means that the lower court’s decision stands.
Holzclaw’s sister, Jennifer, blasted SCOTUS’ ruling, insisting that “justice was not served in this case.”
“While we are disappointed, it is important to note that the high court’s denial of Daniel’s cert petition does not necessarily mean that the panel agrees with the OCCA’s outrageously flawed and scientifically-illiterate decision,” Jennifer Holzclaw wrote in a statement following the ruling. “According to the Court’s rules, at least four justices must agree that the lower court’s ruling warrants review.”
“The post-conviction process is a marathon, not a sprint. The average time it takes to exonerate an innocent person like Daniel is upwards of 14 years. As the University of Michigan reported last year, there were 151 exonerations in 2018, representing a ‘total number of years lost to exonerees of more than 21,000 years,'” she added. “This is devastating and Daniel lives through it every day, but he remains strong in his faith and spirit.”