A judge ordered that a former Dallas police officer be released from jail on Wednesday after ruling that no probable cause existed to support charges that he had hired a man to kidnap and kill two people. The decision by the judge, Audrey Faye Moorehead of Dallas County Criminal Court, came after a prosecutor had conceded that he did not have enough evidence to pursue the two counts of capital murder that the Dallas police had announced last month. “We have an obligation — under the United States Constitution, under the Texas Constitution, under the Code of Criminal Procedure, under our duty as prosecutors — to see that justice is done,” the prosecutor, Jason Fine, said in court. And we have to do something. We can’t just sit by.”The former officer, Bryan Riser, was charged last month, the police said, after a witness said that Mr. Riser had hired him to kill Albert Douglas, 61, and Liza Saenz, 31, both in 2017, and dump their bodies in the Trinity River.

Source: International New York Times April 08, 2021 11:26 UTC