No new trial for Timberview school shooter; defense alleges ‘prosecutorial vindictiveness’

Convicted Timberview High School shooter Timothy Simpkins will not go to trial on additional charges connected with the October 2021 shooting under plea bargain terms negotiated by his defense attorneys and the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office.

Simpkins’ attorney Lesa Pamplin told the Star-Telegram that the defendant will plead guilty to one of the charges and the rest will be dismissed with prejudice, meaning he cannot be retried on any of those charges in the future.

The two-year sentence in the plea agreement will run concurrently with the 12-year sentence Simpkins is already serving, Pamplin said.

“This shouldn’t have happened,” Pamplin said of the multiple charges that were filed against Simpkins after he was found guilty in July 2023 of attempted capital murder.

Why new charges?

A spokesperson for the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office declined to comment on why prosecutors were seeking to try Simpkins on additional charges, saying they “don’t comment on pending litigation.”

According to Pamplin, the answer to the additional charges against Simpkins goes back to July 24, the day he was sentenced. The defense sought a probation recommendation, but prosecutors told the jury a life sentence would be appropriate.

The jury ultimately decided on 12 years with the possibility of parole after six.

Following the trial, Assistant District Attorney Rose Anna Salinas, who helped prosecute the case, “lit into” the jury, Pamplin said. Salinas told jurors she would file other charges against Simpkins with cumulative sentences so he would get more time, according to a motion filed by the defense.

That is exactly what prosecutors tried to do, according to Pamplin.

On Aug. 10, 2023 — three days after Simpkins’ attorneys said they met with Tarrant County District Attorney Phil Sorrells to report Salinas’ behavior toward the jury — Simpkins was indicted on charges of unlawfully carrying a weapon to school on the two days before the shooting.

He was also charged at that time with one count of aggravated assault and two counts of deadly conduct related to a shooting that took place at an Arlington RaceTrac gas station on Sept. 26, 2021. The prosecution and Simpkins’ attorneys say the events at RaceTrac and the Timberview shooting 10 days later were connected.

According to court documents, Simpkins’ attorneys weren’t notified of the additional charges until March of this year when the court scheduled a meeting. At that time, the district attorney’s office offered a plea bargain of 15 years stacked on top of Simpkins’ current 12-year sentence, his attorneys said.

On April 9, a Tarrant County grand jury indicted Simpkins on more charges — three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and one count of unlawfully carrying a weapon in a prohibited place in connection with the Oct. 6, 2021, shooting at Timberview High School.

“Vindictiveness,” Pamplin said in a phone interview with the Star-Telegram. “That’s all I can say.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Simpkins’ attorneys filed a motion seeking to dismiss the indictments with prejudice based on “prosecutorial vindictiveness and outrageous conduct,” on the part of the district attorney’s office.

The motion elaborates on Salinas’ alleged conduct toward the jury the day Simpkins was sentenced and states that the additional charges came three days after Simpkins’ attorneys met with Sorrells, Salinas and another employee at the district attorney’s office to discuss Salinas’ behavior.

Simpkins’ attorneys argue in the motion that all of the things Simpkins was subsequently charged with were “known to the State, presented to the jury on July 24, 2023, and they (the jury) were charged to consider any extraneous crime or bad act in assessing punishment where the State was seeking a life sentence.”

“Defense has no knowledge of any public outcry or interest of justice that could be served by filing all of these new charges against Defendant who was settled into his incarceration and working on future goals,” the motion reads. “The State did not have a single public outcry witness in the sentencing phase of the July 2023 trial. There is no evidence of future danger to the community when Defendant is released. His offense involved a defensive response against the person who attacked him.”

🚨 More top stories from our newsroom:

→ Judge grants Timberview High School shooter relief on 2 new charges

→ Mom, 3 kids killed in head-on crash between SUV, semi

→ Police arrest murder suspect in after-prom party killing

[Get our breaking news alerts.]

Timberview High School shooting

On the morning of Oct. 6, 2021, 15-year-old Zacchaeus Selby entered an English class that was already in progress at Timberview High School, which is located in Arlington but part of Mansfield ISD. Instead of going to his assigned seat near the door, he charged to the back of the room where Simpkins was sitting. The two boys fought, and Simpkins took a beating, eyewitnesses said at his trial.

Two coaches separated the teens, and saw Simpkins held a gun pointed at Selby. Simpkins shot Selby once, and then again as the 15-year-old crawled on his back toward a stairwell, according to testimony and video. Simpkins fired on Selby six times.

Another student, Shaniya McNeely, was grazed by a bullet. A teacher who arrived to help break up the fight, Calvin Pettitt, was shot in the back when he turned to run after learning Simpkins had a gun. All three of the shooting victims survived.

Ten days before the shooting, Simpkins was smoking marijuana inside a car at an Arlington RaceTrac with three others, including Selby’s older brother. Two of them hit Simpkins on the back of the head with a gun and stole his marijuana and cash, he said. Simpkins said he fired a handgun at the car the two left in.

According to court documents, Simpkins’ attorneys say he carried a gun to Timberview High School because he’d been threatened by Selby and his brother and was afraid for his life. His shot Selby in reaction to Selby’s attack on him. Pettitt and McNeely were “accidentally injured in the crossfire,” the attorneys said.

During the trial, Judge Ryan Hill wouldn’t allow the jury to consider self-defense in their deliberations. Defense attorney MarQuetta Clayton told Hill the ruling would cause “egregious harm” to her client.

Where do things stand now?

Simpkins is set to appear in court Thursday morning for a hearing related to the plea deal and the motions his attorneys have filed.

In addition to the motion alleging prosecutorial vindictiveness, Simpkins’ attorneys have also filed a motion to quash, or reject, his April 9 indictment, which originally charged Simpkins with three counts of aggravated assault and one count of unlawfully carrying a weapon in a prohibited place.

Two of the aggravated assault victims were listed as Pettitt, the teacher who was shot in the back, and McNeely, the student who was grazed by a bullet. A third individual who wasn’t part of the original case against Simpkins was also listed.

On Friday, Hill ruled that the two counts of aggravated assault involving Pettitt and McNeely violate the double jeopardy charge of the Fifth Amendment. He also denied a motion from the prosecution to amend the indictment by substituting two other individuals who were present but not injured at Timberview at the time of the shooting in place of Pettitt and McNeely.

At a May 7 hearing, the prosecution agreed to waive the fourth count in the indictment of unlawfully carrying a weapon in a prohibited place.

The third charge of aggravated assault involving an individual who was present but not injured in the October 2021 shooting remains on the indictment. In Tuesday’s motion, Simpkins’ attorneys objected to the charge and asked the court to nullify it, saying the indictment didn’t “sufficiently describe the alleged criminal conduct” and “fails to fairly inform Simpkins of the charge against which he must defend.”

According to Pamplin, this case is bigger than just Simpkins. She sees the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office’s desire to bring Simpkins to trial again as part of a “MAGA mentality” to challenge every decision they don’t agree with.

“We don’t want this to happen to anyone else,” Pamplin said.

Pamplin referred to the Crystal Mason case as an example. Sorrells recently asked the Texas Second Court of Appeals to reverse its March ruling that Mason’s 2018 conviction for illegal voting should be overturned because she didn’t have actual knowledge that she couldn’t vote while on federal supervised release in a tax fraud case.

Sorrells told the Tarrant County Commissioners in a May 7 briefing that he was trying to send a message by seeking to reverse the ruling, and the appellant court that overturned the conviction picked and chose facts and didn’t function as an appellant court should.

“I want would be illegal voters to know that we’re watching,” Sorrells said. “We’ll follow the law and we would prosecute illegal voting.”

Pamplin told the Star-Telegram that it’s time for all those involved in the Timberview High School shooting to heal, not testify about their experiences at another trial.