Hollis Daniels gets life sentence for 2017 slaying of Texas Tech police officer Floyd East Jr.

Jurors in the capital murder trial of 24-year-old Hollis Reid Daniels returned to the 137th District Court Friday evening with a verdict sentencing the Seguin native to life in prison without parole for the Oct. 9, 2017 deadly shooting of Texas Tech University police officer Floyd East Jr.

Jurors deliberated for three days before deciding Daniels deserved to spend the remainder of his life in prison for killing the Texas Tech police officer who was a husband and father of two.

East, 48, had been a certified police officer for five months before he was killed. A native of El Paso, East was in the midst of completing his training at the Texas Tech University Campus in Lubbock and was slated to serve at the El Paso campus when he was done.

Sighs of relief escaped the from the gallery, where Daniels' family sat as the sentence was announced.

Meanwhile, Juanita Cooper sat on the witness stand and unloaded on him the words she's waited more than five years to say since the merciless killing of her brother.

"You have the privilege to be anything in life that you choose to be, but you chose to be a cop killer," she said, staring at Daniels. "Not only did you choose to take our brother's life, Floyd was everybody's brother here: A kind, loving man.

She said Daniels repaid the respect her brother showed him by killing him without mercy.

"And like the coward that you are, you didn't give him a chance to fight for his life," she said. "I pray that justice show you the same - no mercy and may you rot in hell."

The trial process

The trial began in October, nearly five years to the day of the shooting, after attorneys on both sides stood before District Judge John McClendon and announced they were ready to try the case, which had been pending in the court for more than five years.

From November to about late January, attorneys worked to pare down a pool of hundreds of potential jurors to a 12-person jury panel with four alternates.

Parents recall Hollis Daniels' struggles with depression before deadly shooting of Tech police officer

Before jurors heard testimony and opening statements on Feb. 6 Daniels entered an open plea of guilty to a count of capital murder of a police officer. However, since Daniels' plea did not arise from a negotiation with the Lubbock County District Attorney, he faced the full range of punishment.

From then on the trial focused on what Daniels, who testified in his trial, deserved for his actions the night he shot killed East.

To find Daniels deserved the death penalty, jurors had to answer two questions: Whether the evidence showed a probability that Daniels would commit criminal acts of violence that constituted a continuing threat to the prison population in which he will spend the rest of his life and whether there was proof of mitigating circumstances that should spare him the death sentence.

For Daniels to get a life sentence without parole, at least 10 jurors would have to agree that he wasn't a future danger and 10 had to agree that there was sufficient mitigating circumstances to spare him the death sentence.

However, all 12 jurors had to be unanimous to send Daniels to death row.

Jurors found that Daniels was a future danger but more than 10 of them believed there were mitigating circumstances to spare him the death sentence.

Attorneys on both sides were given four hours on Wednesday to present their closing arguments during which jurors were given two versions of the defendant.

Prosecutors argued that the evidence in the three-weeks of testimony portrayed the defendant as a cold, manipulative and deceitful killer, who fooled everyone in his life to keep living a drug-fueled, criminal lifestyle. They said Daniels executed East because the officer was on the wrong side of his moral world view.

They said Daniels' actions the night he shot East clearly showed he posed a future danger and that any change he's displayed in the five years of his incarceration at the Lubbock County Detention Center was just another form of manipulation to escape the death penalty.

However, defense attorneys argued Daniels killed the officer in the fog of a 30-hour mental health crisis stemming from drug abuse, unaddressed mental health issues and grief from the loss of a family member the summer before the shooting.

They argued to jurors that their client's clean disciplinary record in his five-years at the jail showed Daniels does not pose a threat to the prison community in which he will spend the rest of his life.

They called on jail volunteers and employees who described Daniels as a model inmate they've seen help others in class or even ease tensions among other inmates. They told jurors they believe Daniels would act the same way in a prison setting.

Chip Lewis, who led Daniels defense, told jurors that he believed the death penalty was a necessary tool to ride society of evil. But it was meant for the worst circumstances, which his client's case did not meet.

He said outside of the 30-hours leading up to the fatal shooting, there was no record his client engaged in violent criminal behavior.

Defense attorney Lauren Byrne told jurors that testimony from Daniels' friends and family showed that for years his parents missed, ignored or misinterpreted signs their son was on a path of self-destruction.

"Meaningful opportunities for treatment and intervention were missed," she said.

However, Byrne told jurors her client's drug use and mental instability at the time didn't excuse his actions.

"Reid, for the past five and 1/2 years has lived with his actions as he should," she said. "They were horrible and none of those contributing factors are excuses, but they can explain how we got here."

Family members told jurors that mental health issues were typically unaddressed or ignored because it was seen as a sign of weakness.

Byrne said as her client's mental condition deteriorated, his drug use, particularly Xanax, increased, making him more irrational and suicidal. By the time Daniels was alone with East at the police station he was in the throes of a mental health crisis.

"It wasn't until his state of mind, he irrationally thought the only way out of this was to do what he did," she said. "It's senseless and irrational and it was fueled by depression and drugs."

Byrne said once her client was immediately remorseful once he came out of the haze of drugs and has wanted to take responsibility for his actions at his first opportunity. She said he has and spent his time at the jail strengthening his faith and helping other inmates.

Audra Terzenbach, a volunteer at the jail, told jurors she has seen Daniels help a fellow inmate obtain a GED and ease tensions between other inmates during class.

She said while her client can never make sufficient amends for his actions he still can contribute to the prison community.

"He will never leave (prison)," she said. "But he can still give something."

However, prosecutors said the evidence showed that Easts shooting could have been prevented but Daniels rejected any help he was offered to pull him away from his path.

They said Daniels, who came from an affluent family that owned multiple properties in Seguin including a historical theater was given every advantage to succeed. Instead, they said he chose to live a life of drugs and crime that he hid from his family and friends.

"He chose his lifestyle he chose the path has gone down," Lubbock County District Attorney Sunshine Stanek told jurors in her closing argument. "Everything he chose his entire life is what put him here today."

Prosecutor Barron Slack told jurors that Daniels deserved the death penalty because he has shown an innate "callous indifference to human life and a disrespect for law enforcement" that made him a danger to anyone in prison.

He described the shooting as "senseless, needless, unnecessary and cold blooded." He said East finally achieved his dream job and was killed because of it,

"He died well in service to others, to sacrifice for others," Slack said.

He reminded jurors the shock and disbelief Daniels' friends and family expressed when they heard about the deadly shooting.

"Nobody should learn in the future at cost to themselves what you already know," he said. "The state's contention is and has been, the defendant's actions, manipulations, his capacity to deceive and kill is sufficient to prove a future danger."

During the trial jurors learned that in his sophomore year of high school, as his drug use was picking up, he was arrested for possessing synthetic marijuana. He was eventually placed on probation and went through the drug court program, which offered him drug education courses.

However, he said he never stopped using drugs and continued to smoke marijuana saying he drank cranberry juice to get around court-ordered urine drug tests.

Daniels said he started using drugs in high school and enjoyed getting high. But his drug use began to increase in frequency to smother the feelings of melancholy and insecurity that began to growing inside him. However, he also described his childhood as ideal, saying his parents provided him a wonderful childhood in Seguin where he went to private schools and all his needs were met.

"When I look back now, I didn't have anything to be sad about," he said.

He said his lifestyle choices were influenced by rap music, which he said glorified guns and drug use.

As he attended a private high school in New Braunfels he served as a middle man, providing his classmates with drugs, then began selling directly to them from his own supply.

He said he experimented with other drugs like LSD and psychedelic mushrooms and even tried getting high on household products such as canned air, developing a preference for the taste of a particular brand.

Then in his junior year of high school, he said he began using Xanax.

"It made all the anxiety go away," he said. "It gave me courage to do things and say things that I would not have ever done."

He said after high school, one of his main driving forces to go to college was to get as far away from his parent's scrutiny, though they were unaware of how bad his drug use had become.

By the end of high school he began using Xanax regularly. He told jurors Xanax gave him confidence to do things he wouldn't normally do, such as cope with stage fright when he was cast in school play. He said when the anti-anxiety drug took hold of him he felt as if there was a screen that separated him from reality.

"I felt it made me chill," he said. "I told people it was THE chill pill. It was epitome of a chill pill. I thought those were the effects ."

However, he said he also used Xanax to help him do things he wanted to do such as shop lift beers from gas stations.

He said Texas Tech's reputation as a "party school" appealed to him because knew he would be able to obtain Xanax.

Daniels told jurors in the hours before the shooting his Xanax supply was running low and he planned to steal a friend's gun so he could rob a Xanax dealer he contacted through another dealer. He planned to return the gun without anybody noticing.

However, after robbing the dealer, his friend called him back and confronted him about the stolen gun. He said he kept the gun and denied stealing it because he was embarrassed.

Slack said Daniels' actions that night was not a result of a combination of the defendant's depression, drug abuse and grief, as defense attorneys argued but part of a long pattern of criminal behavior Daniels engaged in for years.

"What you saw here is a result of someone's chosen path toward criminal behavior," he said.

He told jurors the unpredictable nature of Daniels' actions that night showed a great probability that he could commit future acts of violence in prison.

Evidence at the trial showed that East arrested Daniels after responding to his dorm room to investigate a report the then sophomore's roommates made after hearing a gunshot from his room. The investigation shifted when officers found drugs and drug paraphernalia strewn about Daniels' room.

Evidence at the trial included hours of video from police body worn cameras that not only caught Daniels' interactions with police but also East's shooting.

Daniels could be seen speaking with officers coherently and appeared to have no trouble with his coordination. Friends of Daniels told jurors that they knew the defendant was intoxicated on Xanax because he was often lethargic, forgetful, incoherent and uncoordinated.

The trial shed light on how Daniels was able to smuggle the stolen firearm to the Texas Tech police station after his arrest. Video showed Daniels shifting his legs and even maneuvering the weapon while sitting in the back of East's police vehicle.

For a little more than a half-hour Daniels sat with the officer alone in the station's briefing room. Moments before the shooting, Daniels' asked the officer about his family before pressing the weapon against his head and shooting him.

Daniels told jurors that when he encountered the officers in his dorm room, his immediate thoughts were about getting rid of the gun without the officers seeing it, but failed at every attempt.

He said he remembers shooting East but couldn't offer a reason for it.

"I thought I was stuck," he said. "I thought it was all over. I thought this was an opportunity to go out, to commit suicide ... This was me going out in a flash, in a splash, this is how I can go out without doing it to my self."

He told jurors that before shooting East, he asked the officer about his family and his children. He said East's answer might have determined whether he would pull the trigger. However, he said at the same time, he wanted the officer to think about something pleasant before he killed him.

Daniels said despite being suicidal he didn't try to kill himself with the gun and instead ran away prompting an hour and 1/2 long manhunt on campus. Police would later find the murder weapon in a drainage area by Marsha Sharp Freeway near the Texas Tech police station.

Slack told jurors that Daniels' actions that night and since has been driven by self-preservation.

"This is not someone who is incoherent," he said. "It was logical. It was not , contrary to the defendant's claim, irrational."

Jurors also watched videos of Daniels' arrest at the site of the former Lubbock Municipal Coliseum, during which he taunted and goaded law enforcement officers into shooting.

Evidence of Daniels behavior after the shooting showed him making irrational statements. During his interview with detectives he said he was on the phone with his mother as he ran around campus after the shooting. However, cellphone records showed he made no such call.

Defense attorneys called on a neuropharmacologist, who told jurors that an analysis of Daniels' urine three days after the shooting showed an alarming level of Xanax in his system. Dr. Wilkie Wilkins told jurors that based on Daniels' history of drug use it was possible that the defendant developed a tolerance to the drug's physical effects but could still be irrational.

However, Slack said it was unreasonable to believe that intoxication from Xanax, one of the most prescribed prescriptions drugs out there, compelled the shooting.

"It doesn't do this," he said. "This (shooting) is motivated by self preservation, and disrespect to law enforcement."

Stanek told jurors the shooting was enough to show Daniels was a future danger.

"The evidence of future danger is right there and his explanation as to why he asked that question because the question in and of itself wasn't bad enough … is unbelievable," she said.

She quoted a letter Daniels wrote in his first days at the jail in which he called himself a wolf in sheep's clothing. She said Daniels was a self-admitted liar and has known early in the case that he faced the death penalty and has lived in the jail with that possibility hanging over him.

"When there is no longer the death penalty over his head how will he behave based on what you know about him and what he's capable of?" Stanek asked jurors.

During his testimony Daniels struggled to express why jurors should show him mercy, saying he understood he deserved the death penalty.

"Because it's terrible. It's senseless. The crime itself is just unforgivable," he said. "But then on the other hand I think about my family and the truth is I'm biased in my own favor. I wanted to die, not any more."

Stanek told jurors her request for a death sentence wasn't an easy one.

"One of the hardest things I've ever had to do is to ask you to kill this man," she said pointing at Daniels. "But I cannot trust him to go to the prison system and not be a future danger based on what I know about him and what you know about him."

Slack told jurors their decision in the case wasn't a simple one.

"The issues encompassed (in this case) has much to do with other people besides the defendant," he said. "It includes the standards that protects police officers, punishment for the loss of an innocent life..."

However he said capital punishment was a reinforcement of a standard that protects people like East who wore a badge to protect everybody.

Stanek ended her closing argument by playing a recording of the Texas Tech Police Department's end of watch dispatch for East. Jurors heard dispatchers call out East's badge number three times to no response.

"Unit 635 officer Floyd East End of Watch Oct. 9, 2017. Thank you for your service. God speed," the dispatcher said.

Stanek said after the trial that she stood by her belief Daniels' character and the threat he posed to the prison population warrants a death sentence.

"That this office will always stand up for law enforcement," she said. "And we will try case after case after case to stand up for law enforcement. We respect the jury's verdict and have no idea why or how they arrived at it but we certainly respect it. And we're grateful for the time that they spent, the hours and hours and hours that they spent on this case."