Michelle Malkin Defends Another Convicted Rapist

For the past two years, conservative columnist Michelle Malkin has written many columns defending convicted Oklahoma City police officer turned rapist Daniel Holtzclaw. And last month, in an apparent attempt to insinuate massive fraud in Oklahoma, Malkin found another convicted rapist to defend.

In her column, Malkin complains that the state of Oklahoma has discarded evidence in the case of Rayshun Mullins. Mullins was convicted of sexual assaults against nine women in 2009, earning a sentence of 1,015 years, plus six life sentences. I don’t know if there is any merit to Malkin’s complaints or not. Mullins claims authorities never notified him of the pending destruction of evidence, as required by law, but Malkin presents no proof of this. What she does present is a list of evidence that has been discarded. There are reasons to be concerned about the practice of destroying or discarding evidence in serious criminal cases, but that’s not Malkin’s mission here.

The real reason for her interest in the Mullins case is that it allows her to attack, by name, specific officials who helped put Daniel Holtzclaw in prison. Although she never comes out and says it, Malkin insinuates that Detective Kim Davis and crime lab employee Elaine Taylor were engaged in some sort of fraud or were massively incompetent.

So is Mullins innocent? In 2009, Mullins’ sentencing judge has this to say about him:

You are such a danger to this community that I am pleased that you will never again be free.

In fact, not only did prosecutors have Mullins DNA and fingerprints, they also had a taped confession:

“I’m not a bad person. … I don’t even know why I do it,” Mullins said in one taped confession played during the trial.

Mullins had also pleaded guilty to the charges in 2006. His conviction was later thrown out because neither the judge nor his attorney informed him that violent offenses required him to serve a minimum of 85% of his sentence. At his first trial he received a sentence totaling more than 500 years.

According to a tweet from Malkin, the Oklahoma Innocence Project declined to help with Mullins’ case.

Since Mullins confessed and previously pleaded guilty, it seems grossly irresponsible to suggest that some fraudulent lab work is the only thing keeping him in jail. But gross and irresponsible perfectly describes the bulk of Michelle Malkin’s reporting on the Daniel Holtzclaw case.