Former Williamson County deputies in Javier Ambler II’s death go to trial on Tuesday

Javier Ambler sat with his wife on the front row of a sparse Travis County courtroom last week as prosecutors, defense attorneys and a judge took final steps to prepare for the long-awaited trial in their son’s death.

He often dreams about how Javier Ambler II would have lived the past five years: Watching his children mature, possibly settling into a relationship or marriage and fulfilling a dream to launch a catering business. Ambler, 71, said he knows they would have continued regular father-son fishing trips.

“There’s so much at stake,” he said in a brief recess. “I want justice for my son. That’s all I want.”

“That was my best friend,” he said.

Across the aisle, two former sheriff’s deputies facing trial for manslaughter in Ambler’s death sat in pressed business suits. The stakes are also high for J.J. Johnson, once a rising TV reality star, and Zach Camden. Outside the courtroom, their attorneys told reporters their clients have lost their careers and faced difficulty finding work while amassing legal bills. They face up to 20 years in prison.

“This has been incredibly hard on them,” attorney Doug O’Connell said.

On Tuesday morning, the selection of a jury starts in a case that brought a national spotlight on the Williamson County sheriff’s office, led Texas to ban partnerships between law enforcement and TV reality shows, and torpedoed the political career of a popular sheriff.

About 300 potential jurors – a larger-than-usual pool due to pretrial publicity – are being summoned, with state District Judge Karen Sage allowing several days for 12 members and two alternates to be seated. She has set opening statements for Feb. 26.

The night Javier Ambler II died

On the night of Ambler’s death in March 2019, the 40-year-old father of two was traveling home near Round Rock after playing poker with friends when he failed to dim his headlights to oncoming traffic. Ambler then led Johnson, who had crews from the A&E show “Live PD” in his patrol car, and Camden on a 20-minute chase that crossed into Austin before crashing his SUV. Video showed the deputies using Tasers on Ambler multiple times as he shouted that he had a heart condition and could not breathe – all while the show filmed. Ambler died moments later.

Prosecutors Holly Taylor, Dexter Gilford, Jeffrey Flanagan and Destinee Williams will try to convince jurors that the deputies used excessive and unjustified force and pursued Ambler across two counties to create captivating television – not for law enforcement or public safety. They likely will argue that the quest for fame and ratings cost Ambler his life.

“The Travis County District Attorney’s Office is committed to seeking justice on behalf of Javier Ambler and his family and is ready for trial,” the district attorney’s office said in a statement.

Defense attorneys Doug O’Connell, Ken Ervin, Drew Rountree and Lindsey Adams likely will argue that the force against Ambler was justified and that Ambler’s flight posed a community danger. They also might assert that Taser shocks did not kill Ambler, but that he suffered from multiple medical conditions that could have turned fatal from the rush of the chase.

“We are anxious to get to the trial, because we think when the truth gets out and the whole story is known, it will be a drastically different perception of our clients,” O’Connell said.

Last week, Sage ruled against prosecutors in their effort to pursue an added misdemeanor assault charge against Johnson, agreeing that prosecutors had not given Johnson’s defense the legally required notice of the charge brought in January.

The case will mark the second time during his four-year term that Travis County District Attorney José Garza has tried a law enforcement officer for an in-custody death. Last year, a jury deadlocked in the murder trial of Austin police officer Christopher Taylor in the shooting of Michael Ramos.

The Ambler family said that, despite what they consider strong evidence, they know convicting law enforcement officers in Texas remains a high hurdle. A recent American-Statesman analysis found that convictions were rare among officers who have stood trial for in-custody deaths in the past five years.

“I have seen many instances where the cops go free,” Ambler said. “This happens many times. You just close your eyes, and not only pray, but just hope that they look at things based on the evidence. They made a deadly mistake.”

The legal analysis

The details of Ambler’s death remained unknown to the public and his family until the spring of 2020, when the Statesman began investigating.

Days before George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, which sparked a national movement against police brutality, the Texas attorney general’s office ordered then-Sheriff Robert Chody to release records in Ambler’s death. The Statesman then obtained body camera footage of the incident from an Austin police officer who arrived during the encounter.

However, the company that produced "Live PD" said it had destroyed its video of the incident.

In a monthslong examination, the Statesman published a series of articles revealing other questionable use-of-force encounters that Chody’s employees and experts said were designed to generate viewers for “Live PD.”

The case also saw indictments against Chody and Assistant County Attorney Jason Nassour after prosecutors accused them of involvement in the destruction of “Live PD” footage showing Ambler’s final moments. Those cases, which have suffered setbacks to the prosecution, are pending.

More: Former sheriff Robert Chody, assistant county attorney face new charge in Javier Ambler death

Unlike Taylor’s case, prosecutors pursued a manslaughter case rather than a murder charge, which lawyers who have followed the case say might provide an added advantage.

Steven Brand, an Austin defense lawyer, said manslaughter is a “significantly lower burden” for prosecutors. While murder requires that a person acted intentionally or knowingly, manslaughter only requires that a person acted recklessly. Texas penal code says that a person acted recklessly when one is “aware of but consciously disregards” a risk.

Jurors will be asked to consider Camden’s and Johnson’s actions from the officers’ point of view — and whether their actions were reasonable, he said.

Austin attorney Brad Vinson, who represents a man in a civil lawsuit against Williamson County stemming from a “Live PD” raid, said prosecutors likely will be able to show that the desire for dramatic footage fueled the encounter.

“The smoke that covers all of this is ‘Live PD,’ and if the state can get that across, it will inflame the jury,” Vinson said.

Vinson said the fact that Ambler fled will help the defense, which can argue that Ambler had to be stopped. But he said that while some jurors might agree that he posed a risk, others will likely be troubled that the encounter was started by the most minor of crimes.

“If the jury is watching and realizes this man dies at the scene and it's all because of some headlights, that gives me a visceral reaction,” he said.

Vinson added that jurors likely will focus on the repeated use of the Taser – the deputies used the weapon four times – and question whether Ambler’s not complying was enough to justify continued use.

"Why would you continue to tase someone because you can't get their hand in a restraint?" Vinson said.

Robert McCabe, who last year defended a Bell County officer acquitted on a manslaughter charge, agreed that the defense will likely try to paint Ambler as a criminal who committed a felony by fleeing. Prosecutors will be forced to address that, he said.

“They are already starting in a hole,” he said.

He said he expects the deputies’ defense team will try to “normalize” their actions, adding that even if they find what they did in the Ambler case objectionable, their lawyers will argue that it was lawful.

McCabe added that policing experts will try to highlight how commonly a suspect will tell police that he can’t breathe.

“I think this is a winnable case for the defense,” he said.

Ambler's death and the impact on reality TV

Ambler’s death prompted the entertainment industry to reconsider shadowing police for reality TV, and, in Texas, it led to the Javier Ambler II Law, which banned law enforcement from partnering with production companies for such shows.

By the time details of Ambler’s death were public, “COPS,” which first aired in 1989 and created a large fan base for such programming, was pulled from the air immediately after Floyd’s death, but it returned to the airways on the Fox Nation subscription-based network in October 2021.

“Live PD” remained off the air for more than two years until a rebooted show called “On Patrol: Live” debuted on the lesser-known network Reelz in July 2022 to a flurry of entertainment news coverage. Similar to “Live PD,” it features ride-alongs with police with commentary from analysts in New York.

Host Dan Abrams said the new show would offer more transparency than its predecessor, telling Entertainment Weekly that the program would retain footage for more than 30 days after a serious incident such as Ambler’s death.

“I think that the previous rule was far too doctrinaire and too strict — it was 30 days, and unless we have a subpoena, we destroyed the tape,” Abrams told the outlet. “This time around, we are going to be cautious about that, when there's something where we think, ‘This is an exceptional event,’ even though we didn't air it, the producers are going to keep it.”

The new show has continued to draw both ratings and criticism.

Two months after its release, Reelz said in a news release that 6.8 million unique viewers had seen the program with an average viewing time of 270 minutes. The network’s CEO, Stan E. Hubbard, said, “Americans have embraced ‘On Patrol: Live’ in a big way.”

In a piece for the Guardian, arts writer Adrian Horton called the shows “a backslide” to police reform and said that despite promised alterations, “no change to a program fundamentally intended to translate policing into 'gotcha' entertainment would be enough.”

“The Ambler case is perhaps the most egregious example of the show’s loyalties and incredibly murky ethics, but its mundane, bread-and-butter segments do their own harm,” Horton wrote.

The Albuquerque Journal, in an October 2022 editorial, condemned the partnership between producers and the Bernalillo County sheriff’s office in New Mexico. The editorial said that a sheriff’s spokeswoman defended the arrangement and believed it would help connect local law enforcement and the community.

“Yeah, if you want to spotlight crime and victimize victims,” the editorial said, concluding that officials should recommend the show “exit the nearest stage door.”

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Former Williamson County deputies go to trial in Javier Ambler's death