Capital murder trial to begin for Hollis Daniels 5 years after Texas Tech officer's slaying
Hollis Daniels, a former Texas Tech freshman from Seguin, is set to stand trial on Monday for capital murder - five years and a day after he was arrested in connection with the shooting death of campus police officer Floyd East Jr..
However, jury selection will not begin until a few weeks later. Judge John McClendon in the 137th District Court is expected to call the case and ask attorneys for the state and defense if they are ready to begin trial and then deal with pretrial matters.
Historically, jury selection for death penalty cases in Lubbock can take up to a month to complete and begins with potential jurors filling out questionaires that will determine if, among other things, an impartial jury can be assembled to hear the high-profile case.
Typically, between 200-300 jurors will be summoned for the process.
McClendon issued a media gag order shortly after Daniels was indicted in 2017, barring law enforcement agencies, prosecutors and defense attorneys to speak to the media about the case, arguing that heavy news coverage could taint the jury pool.
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Daniels, 24, has been held at the Lubbock County Detention Center since his Oct. 10, 2017, arrest and is accused in the shooting death of East earlier that evening.
If convicted, Daniels, who is represented by Houston attorney Chip Lewis and Lubbock attorney Mark Snodgrass, faces the death penalty or life in prison without parole.
The Lubbock County District Attorney's Office has said in previous hearings that it is seeking the death penalty in the case.
The trial comes two weeks after McClendon denied a request to throw out Daniels' interview with police in which he admitted to shooting and killing East.
Daniels' case has encountered delays brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, which halted criminal trials in Texas for nearly a year, and another high-profile case.
Lewis told the court in a November 2020 hearing that he would have to hold off on engaging in another trial without the permission of the Los Angeles County Judge presiding over the trial for his other client, billionaire Robert Durst.
Durst, 78, was arrested in 2015 in connection with the death of his friend, Susan Berman. He was convicted in September 2021 of shooting Berman at point-blank range in 2000 at her Los Angeles home. He was sentenced to life in prison about a month later. He died of natural causes in January.
Shooting at Texas Tech
Court records state that East and Daniels were in a briefing room where the officer was completing paperwork for Daniels' arrest on unrelated drug charges.
A corporal who was in another room heard a gunshot and found East alone in the room suffering from a gunshot wound, according to an arrest warrant. Police arrested Daniels following a two-hour search on the Tech campus.
Daniels was arrested on campus after a two-hour long manhunt. A .45 caliber pistol was found near him.
"Hollis Daniels stated to officers that he was the one that shot their friend," the warrant states.
East, 48, was a native of El Paso who started his career with the Tech PD Dec. 2, 2014 as a guard at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso. While there, he attended the El Paso Community College Law Enforcement Academy to obtain his basic peace officer license.
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On May 1 of 2017, nearly a year after obtaining that license, he transferred to the Lubbock campus for a field training program. However, East still lived in El Paso with his wife and two daughters, and traveled to Lubbock each week instead of uprooting the entire family. He completed this program on Aug. 31 and hoped, eventually, to move back to El Paso to work as a police officer on the Texas Tech HSC campus there, according to Avalanche-Journal archives.
East's wife, Carmen, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Daniels in 2019. However, Hollis never filed a response despite records showing that he was served with the lawsuit at the jail and attorney James Frost sought a 30-day extension to file one.
In May 2020 Lubbock Judge Ruben Reyes issued a default judgement in East's favor, finding that Hollis owed her $120 million in damages, according to court records.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Hollis Daniels set to stand trial in Texas Tech officer's slaying
