While an East Texas man was facing a death sentence, his Dallas-based defense attorney was allegedly messaging and soliciting women, according to a petition to reinvestigate and vacate his capital murder conviction filed late last month.
In the filing, former Tyler nurse William Davis — who was found guilty and sentenced to death for fatally injecting air into four patients’ arteries following heart surgeries at a Tyler hospital — says his defense attorney, Phillip Hayes, messaged an undercover cop posing as an escort during his 2021 trial. The court document says Hayes was arranging to pay $110 in exchange for sex, possibly texting in court while a key witness for the prosecution testified.
Hayes was detained that night, Oct. 5, 2021, by Smith County authorities. He was arrested a month later on a felony charge of solicitation of prostitution — days before he was to appear in court to represent accused serial killer Billy Chemirmir in Dallas.
Read the rest of the story at the Tyler Morning Telegraph.
