BURTON BANK ROBBERY CASE WILL NOT HAVE SECOND TRIAL; CASE DISMISSED
(Washington Co. Jail)
Prosecutors will not seek a second trial against the man accused of robbing Burton State Bank at gunpoint on June 7, 2018, and have dismissed the case.
In a statement this (Thursday) morning to KWHI, Washington County District Attorney Julie Renken said her office has decided to “not move forward again” after the trial last week of 55-year-old Shawn Patrick Childers of La Grange ended with a hung jury. Seven of the 12 jurors voted he was not guilty of three counts of aggravated robbery.
Renken said, “There is no other evidence or any new evidence that could be presented that was not presented in the first trial. Therefore, we do not think a new trial would produce different results.”
In the trial, prosecutors used investigations into Childers’ financial history and the timeline of events leading up to and occurring after the robbery during their arguments to convict Childers. The defense pointed to a lack of physical evidence, such as DNA or fingerprints, to connect him to the crime and stated what was presented was not enough to prove him guilty.
Surveillance video from the day of the robbery showed a man wearing a cowboy hat, sunglasses and medical mask. The man fled the bank in a white truck with approximately $12,000. Childers was arrested in May 2020, nearly two years after the robbery.
Renken said Childers was released from custody late Wednesday after her office spoke to the victims in the case.
When asked if double jeopardy would prevent Childers from being tried on these charges again in the future, Renken stated that if new evidence is found, he could be retried as long as the time is within the statute of limitations, which is five years.
Full statement from Washington County District Attorney Julie Renken:
The 21st Judicial District Attorney’s Office has made the decision to not move forward again on the Shawn Patrick Childers trial. (Burton Bank Robbery Case). The first jury was 7 non-guilty and 5 guilty. There is no other evidence or any new evidence that could be presented that was not presented in the first trial. Therefore, we do not think a new trial would produce different results. Our heart goes out to the victims in this case and hate that justice has not been obtained. We appreciate the years of hard work by the Washington County Sheriff’s Office and the Texas Rangers in this case. I personally appreciate the hard work of my entire office in this case.