Convenience Big Store: A man spent 18 years in Harris County Jail without a trial

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How bogged down are Harris County courts? This Houston man was jailed for 18 years without a trial.

Edric Wilson, 47, arrested in 2006 on charges of capital murder and aggravated assault, spent 18 years bouncing between the Harris County jail and state mental hospitals. Then authorities re-analyzed DNA evidence in the murder case and changed the trajectory of his life.

Photo by: Photo Illustration By Susan Barber, Photography By Raquel Natalicchio And Godofredo A. Vasquez / Houston Chronicle

A man accused of killing Joel Osteen's great-aunt waited in the Harris County Jail without a trial for almost two decades, underscoring the consequences of delayed justice in an overwhelmed criminal justice system.

Through a review of court documents and interviews, the Houston Chronicle pieced together what happened to Edric Wilson and estimated how much it cost county taxpayers.

Read the investigation here

Reporter's notebook

I'm Neena Satija, a reporter on the Chronicle's investigative team. I've written a lot about the Houston region's criminal justice system, where everyone is overwhelmed – from prosecutors, to law enforcement to court-appointed lawyers. Last summer, I heard that county officials had made a shocking discovery: A man had been locked up in the Harris County Jail for 18 years without a trial.

It took me months to identify the man, Edric Wilson, and figure out what happened. None of the six different court-appointed attorneys who represented him agreed to speak to me. Almost none of the court hearings in his cases had been transcribed. When I first tried to reach out to Wilson, he'd been "outsourced" to a jail where he couldn't use a phone. Then he ended up in a state prison that went on lockdown. I had to send letters and make multiple phone calls before finally getting through.

That left me with documents. I combed through hundreds of court records and one available court transcript (which cost hundreds of dollars to order). I filed public records requests to get law enforcement incident reports and jail visitation logs. The records gave me a picture of how Wilson's criminal charges ended up on an indefinite "pause" and how much his lawyers billed for their time. The jail logs revealed the name of one attorney who had worked briefly on Wilson's case and was willing to talk; they also showed me that the last time any attorney went to see Wilson in jail was in 2018, six years before his cases got resolved.

One reason this was so hard to report on: No single agency or person is responsible for what happened. Wilson's cases cycled through six different top prosecutors, three judges and three different sheriffs – all independently-elected county officials. Another set of elected county leaders, known as Commissioners Court, controls many of those officials' purse strings. And then there's the state, which also provides funding and runs the prison system. In order to figure out why our justice system is moving so slowly, we must hold all of these actors accountable, and we'll keep doing just that.

Photo by: Photo Illustration By Susan Barber, Photography By Raquel Natalicchio, Karen Warren, And Godofredo A. Vasquez.

We calculated how much one man's 18 years in jail awaiting trial cost taxpayers

Through a review of court documents and interviews, the Houston Chronicle pieced together what happened and attempted to determine how much it cost. The resulting figure is an estimate, and it's on the low end.

Inmates seen inside the Harris County Jail on Thursday, Jan. 14, 2021, in Houston.

Photo by: Godofredo A. V?squez, Staff Photographer

What can Houston leaders learn from a man's 18-year stay in Harris County Jail?

Local officials are reeling from the news that a man spent 18 years awaiting trial in the Harris County Jail. The Chronicle asked prosecutors, defense attorneys and other experts how the county can keep from having this happen again.