Daryl Lynn Davis is his home on Jan. 9. (Katecey Harrell/ Tyler Morning Telegraph)

Editor’s Note: Interviews and investigation for this story were done in partnership with CBS19. Watch their report at 10 p.m. Wednesday night on CBS19 and visit cbs19.tv for further coverage.

A 60-year-old Tyler man faces up to 99 years in prison — for a crime he says he didn’t commit.

As a young adult, Daryl Lynn Davis turned to a life of crime for excitement after abandoning his faith in God. But after more than 18 years in prison, he found personal growth and redemption. Upon reentry to the community, Davis made it his mission to educate himself and others on the criminal justice system, advocate for change, and support the community.

Now Davis is faced with what he believes is a miscarriage of justice for allegations stemming from a 2019 traffic stop. A trial five years in the making has been postponed again but is set for May in Smith County. Experts say the evidence against Davis is flimsy at best, while the county prosecutor aims to punish him to the fullest extent if found guilty.

The arrest

Late on the night of Feb. 7, 2019, Davis was stopped by police on Confederate Avenue in Tyler. Splitting his time between his two jobs, college classes and regular check-ins, and urine analysis with his parole officer, he thought he had no reason to worry.

Familiar with navigating police interactions, Davis agreeably provided his driver’s license and consented to Tyler officers searching his car. Once out of his vehicle, an officer said Davis “put something in his mouth,” according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

The officer reported he “grabbed (Davis), and attempted to stop him from further destroying evidence,” the affidavit states. The officer then “observed white residue on (Davis’) tongue.”

CBS19 and Tyler Morning Telegraph requested body camera and dash camera footage of the traffic stop, but law enforcement denied the requests, stating it could interfere with investigation or prosecution of a crime.

Although the presence of drugs was not recorded on the incident report, officers took Davis to a nearby medical facility where a medical report shows no tests were performed to check for cocaine. Davis said he insisted the tests.

North Texas civil rights and criminal attorney Justin Moore said it’s uncommon to be charged with tampering with evidence without the evidence being found.

The medical report, provided to the Tyler Morning Telegraph and CBS19, indicates staff performed a complete review of Davis’ systems to identify the present illness, which was recorded as ingestion of cocaine and resulted in negative responses. The review showed he was alert, well-oriented, and responsive, with equal round, reactive pupils and average pulse rates, according to the report.

“If he swallowed evidence and that evidence was crack cocaine, you would imagine that there would be a chemical reaction that would have impaired his mental capabilities that would have been extremely visible,” Moore said.

When people take cocaine, their blood pressure goes up and their heart races, according to the Cleveland Clinic. During the exam, Davis had an elevated heart rate and high blood pressure. A person’s heart rate can become elevated for a number of reasons, including anxiety, stress, emotions, caffeine, pain, et cetera. Davis also has a medically recorded history of hypertension — or high blood pressure — for which he takes medication.

Davis spent about three hours in jail on the tampering with evidence charge before he was released. Several weeks later, he was stopped for speeding through Huntsville, and a license check revealed a blue warrant for his arrest. He was rearrested and released in April 2019.

Soon, Davis started receiving mail addressed to a man with the same name, except a slightly different spelling and middle name — Darryl Glenn Davis, of Tyler, who is in prison after he was found guilty of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in Smith County. Davis noted he gave the officer his driver’s license at the stop. However, the police report for his arrest, obtained by CBS19 and Tyler Morning Telegraph, recorded a state identification number rather than his driver’s license number.

Davis alleges when officers ran his license plate, he was misidentified as someone with the same first and last name. He believes that’s why no toxicology report was done at the hospital – the officer knew he’d made a mistake by the time they arrived, according to Davis.

“Don’t do a toxicology report on him because if you do, he may be clean, but throw him in jail because he is on parole,” Davis thought.

Traffic stop statistics

Statistics show racial disparities when it comes to traffic stops and searches in the city of Tyler.

According to data from the 2022 Texas Racial Profiling Report, white drivers were more than twice as likely to be pulled over than Black drivers in Tyler. However, Black drivers were more than twice as likely to be searched.

Cases where a Black person, like Sandra Bland, loses their life after police encounters leave other people of color frustrated and fearful of law enforcement, said NAACP Tyler Branch President Lisa Williams.

Bland was a 28-year-old African-American woman who was found hanged in a jail cell in Waller County in 2015, three days after being arrested during a traffic stop. Officials found her death to be a suicide. Her death drew outrage over the treatment of Black people by white police officers and was considered a turning point in the Black Lives Matter movement, according to the History Channel.

Police encounters can be traumatizing for people of color; that’s why civil rights organizations offer advice so they’re hopefully less likely to experience a negative interaction, Williams said.

“You’re always on your P’s and Q’s, because you never know what you may encounter,” Williams said. “You always want to follow the rules and do what they ask of you because the main thing you want is to get home.”

Trial looms

Davis was arrested on a Thursday and received negative drug test results the following day. Now, Davis is awaiting a May jury trial in the 114th District Court on the tampering with evidence charge. Former Smith County District Attorney Matt Bingham represents him.

Attorney Vance Freeman said the evidence against Davis is flimsy.

“It’s just a waste of everybody’s time and resources to prosecute a case that’s just so weak,” Freeman said.

Davis’ criminal charge of tampering with evidence would normally carry a sentence of two to 10 years in prison, if convicted. The Smith County District Attorney’s Office seeks to sentence Davis as a habitual offender.

When a defendant has at least two prior felonies and commits a third offense, they could be considered a habitual offender, according to Texas Penal Code. The third felony could result in penalties including life, a term in prison not less than 25 years, and not to exceed 99 years.

“I’m 60 years old. I served (nearly) 20 years straight, and you’re trying to put a man away for life — for nothing,” Davis said.

As a young man, Davis was arrested dozens of times for theft, burglary, driving while intoxicated and more.

He served 18 and a half years of a 40-year sentence after a court found him guilty of assaulting his girlfriend. He was released on parole in 2005.

Advocates believe Davis’ criminal record illustrates the potential for rehabilitation and second chances.

Moore said Smith County is “tough on crime.”

“It seems as if they try to levy the hammer whenever they get a chance whenever they get a defendant that’s in their throws,” Moore said.

Smith County District Attorney Jacob Putman declined to comment on the ongoing case.

Dr. Shirley McKellar, councilmember representing Tyler’s District 3, said she knew Davis before the traffic stop and never knew him to be a drug user. At the time of the stop, Davis was making good grades in his college courses and working to better the lives of children in his community.

A crack cocaine user couldn’t function at the level Davis was functioning, according to McKellar.

“When they carried him to the hospital, and they said that he swallowed crack, why would they not test him for that,” McKellar said. “That would be a definitive answer.”

Behind bars

Since childhood, Davis had a knack for attracting trouble. He always felt like he was being singled out, both at school and church, and this had a lasting impact on him well into adulthood.

“I became spiteful, and I began to take on a demeanor that I shouldn’t have,” Davis said. “You couldn’t educate me. I had a wall up for that kind of stuff because I was bullied coming up through school.”

He grew up with both parents in the household and attended regular church services with his grandparents, siblings and cousins. His father was one of the first Black engineers to work on the Cotton Belt Railroad, and his mother worked in healthcare and for Tyler ISD.

McKellar said Davis grew up in a great family where both his parents were productive community members.

Still, he went down the wrong path.

Davis lashed out and stole candy, hubcaps and T-tops to be a nuisance. His trouble with the law started after graduating high school and starting college.

”I had some good jobs, but it was something about punching that clock that I didn’t like,” Davis said. “This was my mentality, and I went to jail. When I get out, I’m going nowhere fast.”

In 1996, Davis said he started living with a woman too soon. After an altercation, he was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Although two Houston police officers testified on his behalf, the court found Davis guilty.

”They threw me away, and I couldn’t figure it out. One day, a word came to me,” Davis said.

The word was fate, Davis said. Despite that being the first time he’d seen police contradict the legal system – prison was his fate.

”It was something just spontaneous that led me down the wrong way, but when I look at it today, I wonder if I wouldn’t have gone to prison, would I have educated myself, or would I still be stealing,” Davis said.

In 1997, when Davis was fresh into prison, the reality of his situation set in seeing a man restrained from head to toe with heavy metal chains and shackles at the maximum security McConnell Unit. He was relieved to be taken to the Garza East transfer facility before being housed at Eastham in Houston County, but it was only the beginning.

In prison, Davis started taking classes and earned the nickname “School” from fellow inmates because he always had books out working on something. He tried to advise young men who came into the system after him to stay away from gangs and sexual predators.

In May 2006, halfway through his sentencing, he was assaulted twice by prison gang members. He said he eventually discovered a corrections officer mistakenly targeted him.

Representing himself in federal court, he summoned the same gang members who had beaten him to describe how a guard had hired them. He prevailed over State of Texas attorneys at the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

It wasn’t until June 2022 that Davis collected on the case, receiving a check from the state for over $27,000, according to an article from Prison Legal News, a magazine that provides review and analysis of prisoners’ rights, court rulings, and criminal justice-related issues.

Behind bars, Davis said he was just existing; his life didn’t have purpose.

“I wanted to get out of prison before my momma died. It didn’t happen,” Davis said in tears. “It fueled me to be the best I can be.”

Davis said he started writing letters for parole about five years prior. His faith assures him wherever his mother went, she begged for his freedom, and if she were alive today, he wouldn’t have made parole.

His mother died in January 2014 while he was still incarcerated, and days after being notified he’d made parole, his father died.

“I had to stand up and be somebody,” Davis said. “God came to me and gave me a title. He said this is what I want you to do. I want to run this ministry.”

After his release in June 2015, he started the Daryl L. Davis Youth Foundation and Continuing Faith in Christ Ministries to serve underprivileged youth from low economic backgrounds and their families. He also began pursuing his associates degree in criminal justice in October 2016.

When he started his transition back into society, he struggled with anxiety around loud noises and fast movements.

“I was moving at a snail’s pace for almost 20 years,” Davis said. “I had to get adjusted to it.”

Davis said transition was a challenge and admitted to slapping a girlfriend in 2016, after a domestic incident which led to another stint in jail.

Second chances?

Regardless of his past, McKellar is proud of Davis’ transformation. She mentioned how challenging it can be to start a charitable foundation and return to school as an adult.

“He advocates for equality and justice, the criminal justice system. He’s very concerned about that, as all of us should be,” she said.

Bishop Nickalous McGrew, of Higher Dimension Church, has known Davis for about four years. The two met through community civil rights activism — a topic both are passionate about.

McGrew works with justice impacted inmates at the county jail to connect them with resources upon reentry to the community. Through this, he’s learned that formerly incarcerated people are just as capable and deserving of second chances and promotes public safety and positive offender change through effective supervision, programs and services.

Upon hearing the charges against Davis, McGrew thought if there was reason to believe he tampered with evidence, why is there no documentation that he was tested for the substance he was accused of tampering with.

“Those things were quite alarming — that none of those protocols were met,” McGrew said.

This nation should focus on rehabilitation through counseling and support groups, not sending people to prison for the majority of their lives, McKellar said.

‘A human rights thing’

McGrew said Davis has been an upstanding resident of the Tyler community since he’s known him. To him, Davis is a man of integrity, who keeps his word and is passionate about criminal justice reform and community service.

“I would like to see him vindicated. Again, if there is no evidence,” McGrew said.

With a lengthy criminal record from his young adulthood and two aggravated assault charges, the state classifies Davis as a habitual offender. However Davis claims he didn’t commit several of the crimes he served time in prison for.

“I feel that once a person serves their time, that they should be relinquished from all of that,” McKellar said.

After someone has served their time and given back to the community, society should erase their debt, she said. Through his charity organization, Davis is working with the community’s youth to stay out of the criminal justice system — something a lot more people need to get involved with, McKellar said.

“A lot of people go down without a fight. I’m not just fighting for Daryl Lynn Davis. I’m fighting for every Black man, white man, Chinese man, Hispanic, and woman with him,” Davis said. “This is a human rights thing.”