Ex-Fort Worth officer gets new trial after 21 years in prison

In a stunning reversal of fortune, a former Fort Worth police officer sentenced to life in prison for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl in 1994 has been granted a new trial by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

The appeals court held in its two-page opinion issued Wednesday that Brian Edward Franklin, 56, was denied due process because his accuser lied when she testified that she had never had sex before Franklin sexually assaulted her in his back yard in March 1994.

The court found that the complainant’s perjured testimony caused other witnesses to give false testimony.

So far, Franklin has spent more than 21 years in prison.

In a 2014 hearing, the woman, then 33, remained adamant that Franklin assaulted her, but she said her stepfather had raped her years before Franklin did.

Two years ago the appeals court ruled that the accuser’s flawed testimony was insufficient to warrant a new trial, but now the court has changed its mind, said Dick DeGuerin of Houston, one of Franklin’s attorneys.

“The court has followed Judge [Wayne] Salvant’s recommendation and set aside the conviction and ordered a new trial,” DeGuerin said. “This has been a long fight against what was a wrongful conviction. For over 20 years he has been in prison. I believe he’s an innocent man.”

DeGuerin said that at the time of the accuser’s initial testimony in 1995, prosecutors were unaware that she was lying about her previous experience of sex. But they did not know that there was new evidence that proved she was lying, DeGuerin said. Eventually, Salvant held that Franklin did not get a fair trial because of her perjury, DeGuerin said.

“The district attorney’s office should drop the case,” DeGuerin said. “He should be released. We’ll ask for immediate bail and beseech the district attorney’s office to drop the case. But that has to come from the district attorney.”

The Tarrant County district attorney’s office will review the ruling and no decisions have been made on what the next step might be, said Samantha Jordan, spokeswoman for District Attorney Sharen Wilson.

The girl’s stepfather received 10 years’ probation after pleading guilty to injury of a child, Jordan said. That conviction led prosecutors to inform Franklin’s attorneys about the prior sexual abuse by the stepfather, DeGuerin said.

No DNA evidence

During the 2014 hearing, the woman was brought into the courtroom in a wheelchair and appeared to struggle with spasms throughout her testimony. Prosecutors said she suffers from an autoimmune disease that has left her with severe muscle spasms and blindness in one eye.

The Star-Telegram does not usually identify accusers in sexual assault cases.

Prosecutors had no DNA evidence tying Franklin to the rape. Instead, the case rested almost entirely on the testimony of the accuser.

“It’s a simple case,” DeGuerin said after the hearing in 2014. “A conviction cannot stand if it’s based on perjury, in whole or part. That’s just basic fairness and due process.”

Prosecutors disagreed, arguing that the woman never wavered on whether Franklin raped her and that it wasn’t clear the change in her testimony would have made a difference.

Fort Worth attorney Jack Strickland, one of the prosecutors in Franklin’s 2014 hearing, said jurors might not necessarily have acquitted Franklin if they knew about a separate case of abuse.

“The truth of the matter is we don’t know with certainty,” he said, adding that it would be a “travesty” for the case to be overturned based on that omission.

More than 10 years ago, during a previous appeal hearing, Salvant ruled that Franklin’s conviction ought to be set aside. That time, the criminal appeals court overturned Salvant’s ruling.

Strickland has not changed his mind, and still does not agree with Salvant’s ruling. Salvant did what he thought was right and he is a good judge, but the circumstances of the accuser’s abuse, do not warrant a reversal of Franklin’s conviction, Strickland said Wednesday.

“It’s pretty clear to me that Franklin and the stepfather colluded in this abuse somehow,” Strickland said. “The girl did give false testimony and lied to prosecutors. But I don’t see how it would have helped him had she said, ‘Yeah, my stepfather had been abusing me as well.’ ”

‘Very grateful’

Franklin is housed in the Ramsey I unit near Rosharon, about 24 miles south of Houston. Franklin will remain there until he is transferred to Tarrant County, according to the court’s order. Franklin would have first become eligible for parole on Feb. 15, 2025, records from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice show.

The new trial is a result of Franklin’s family standing behind him all these years, DeGuerin said.

“I talked with him on the phone this morning,” DeGuerin said. “He was very tearful, very grateful. I talked with his mother and brother, too, both of whom were very emotional. I will see him early next week.”

“If there’s a lesson to be learned from this it’s that juries are too often persuaded by the false testimony of a sexual assault accuser,” DeGuerin said.

Strickland said he hopes the district attorney’s office will decide to re-try Franklin.

“This was a cop who abused a child and pretty much ruined her life,” Strickland said. “Meanwhile, the stepfather was at home and abusing her all the while she was testifying in the first trial.”

This report includes material from the Star-Telegram archives.

This story was originally published April 6, 2016 at 10:00 PM with the headline "Ex-Fort Worth officer gets new trial after 21 years in prison."