First election

Harris was first appointed as Interim DA for Tulsa County in 1995 after the death of DA David L. Moss., where he served until Bill LaFortune was appointed to the position by Governor Frank Keating in December of that year.^[4] Lafortune held the position until he resigned in May 1998 and Keating appointed Chuck Richardson as his successor in June 1998.^[4][5] Richardson's father had donated thousands to Keating's campaign for governor. The Tulsa Police Department thought Richardson had acted "too zealously" as a defense attorney and backed Harris in the November election for a full term against Richardson. Despite Harris only raising $30,000 to Richardson's $117,000, he won the November 1998 election and took office in January 1999.^[4]

Tenure as Tulsa County District Attorney

In 2006, The Oklahoman reported Harris's campaign filings after the 2006 elections had 240 rule violations. Harris stated he'd correct the errors, but it would be "burdensome" because he was there "to do the people's work in prosecuting crime." The Oklahoma State Election Board could have fined him "up to $1,000 per rule violation," but did not issue a fine.^[6]

In 2010 the Tulsa Police Department alleged there was a conspiracy in the Tulsa jail by inmates to kill Harris.^[7] In 2010, he ran for reelection and was again unopposed.^[8]

In 2011, he announced his intention to file charges against James "Whitey" Bulger, who the Tulsa World described as a "mob kingpin," for the 1981 murder of Tulsa businessman Roger Wheeler in Tulsa.^[9] One of the victim's family members requested the case be moved to Oklahoma City, describing his interactions with Harris as "difficult and disappointing" and alleging Tulsa County was too "corrupt" to handle the case.^[10]

In 2014, Tim Harris and other DAs, such as David Prater and Mike Fields, accused the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board of being mismanaged.^[11]

April Rose Wilkens trial

Four months after assuming office Tim Harris prosecuted the case against April Rose Wilkens.^[17] Wilkens was convicted in July 1999 for killing Terry Carlton.^[18] The case's outcome was denounced by advocates for victims of domestic abuse, since Wilkens had been abused and raped by Carlton.^[19][20] He later accepted campaign contributions after the trial from Terry Carlton's father, Don Carlton.^[21] Don Carlton told the Tulsa World that after the trial he had become a close friend and supporter of Harris.^[22] Another Tulsa Attorney, Lynn Worley, who attended the trail, accused Harris of catering to the rich Carlton family.^[4][23]

Harris's successor, Steve Kunzweiler, would later protest Wilkens's 2022 parole attempt with a letter to the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board stating that the Tulsa County District Attorney's office saw her as a threat to public safety and if she were sentenced with the same conviction today she would not be eligible for parole for another 17 years due to changes in sentencing laws for first-degree murder.^[24]

In 2022, a podcast by two attorneys associated with the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice titled Panic Button: The April Wilkens Case discussed Harris's role as prosecutor in the trial of April Rose Wilkens.^[25] On September 30, 2022, the podcast hosts filed Post Conviction Relief for April Wilkens, claiming that evidence was suppressed during trial,^{[26][27][28][29]} which would fall under the definition of a brady violation.^[30] Before the filing by Briggs and McCarty, Harris was accused of taking campaign contributions from the Brutons and Carltons, family of the man Wilkens killed, and suppressing other evidence not mentioned in the filing.^[31]

Corey Atchison case

In 1991, Harris was the assistant prosecutor who tried the case against Corey Atchison. Atchison had been accused of the murder of James Lane in August 1990 in Tulsa. On June 18 2019, the conviction of Corey Atchison was overturned and he was determined innocent after Tulsa County district Judge Sharon Holmes found the initial trial involved witness coercion and the failure to timely inform his defense counsel of evidence.^[32] Harris "denied claims that misconduct had marred the trial, calling claims of witness coercion 'absurd.'" Harris claims that "he had never coerced, forced testimony or presented false testimony in his career." Current Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler defended Harris's tenure as DA. ^{[33][34][35][36]} Attorneys for the Oklahoma Innocence Project accused Harris of not wanting to admit the system "made a mistake" and that argued Harris's stance "keeps hundreds of requests pouring into the Oklahoma Innocence Project each year from men and women."^[37] In 2020, a Dateline NBC investigative episode aired about Corey Atchison and Malcolm Scott's cases.^{[38][39][40][41]}

Corey Atchison and Malcolm Scott are brothers who were both found to be wrongfully convicted in separate cases. They spent 20 and 28 years, respectively, in Oklahoma’s prison system for murder. Tim Harris was a prosecuting attorney in Atchison’s case. The nonprofit Oklahoma Innocence Project joined Malcolm Scott’s case in 2011, while private Tulsa attorney Joseph Norwood later stepped in to represent Atchison.^{[42] [43]}

Investigators had no physical evidence tying Atchison to the killing. They relied instead on three young witnesses who pointed the finger at Atchison after being interviewed by police. By the time of Atchison’s preliminary hearing prior to the trial, one of the witnesses recanted his claims against Atchison. A second witness recanted his claims at the trial itself. The third and final witness recanted 26 years after Atchison’s conviction. This third witness specifically said in an affidavit that he was coerced and threatened by Tim Harris.^{[44] [45]}

All three witnesses said they were coerced by police and prosecutors or both in Tulsa. The Tulsa district judge who freed Atchison agreed that the witnesses had been “coerced.” Said attorney Joe Norwood to the Washington Post after Atchison’s release: “Corey was arrested three months before his daughter was born; this is the first time he's been able to have some real contact with her and the same with his 10-year-old grandson. I'm very proud to have vindicated them and reunited them.”^[46][47]

While Tulsa authorities were building their case against Atchison, an alternate suspect had begun to emerge in the days after the Lane killing. A tipster who identified herself as “Lisa” gave Tulsa police the name of a man who was a lifetime criminal offender. Two more witnesses could not name the shooter, but they gave descriptions that more closely matched the alternate suspect than Atchison. The police report naming a different suspect was never handed over to Atchison before trial. It was discovered in 2018 by Tulsa attorney Joseph Norwood at Norwood.Law, which was by then representing Atchison in his innocence efforts. Available records, however, do not show that a meaningful effort was ever made to explore the alternate suspect.^[48][49]

Corey Atchison’s brother, Malcolm Scott, was convicted of murder in 1995 following a deadly Tulsa drive-by shooting. In a civil suit against the city of Tulsa and others, Tulsa attorney Norwood is representing Malcolm Scott as well as his co-defendant, Demarchoe Carpenter. The two men were declared “actually innocent” by a Tulsa judge in 2016. Two years before, on the eve of his execution for a different murder, another man admitted to the drive-by shooting and said Scott and Carpenter were innocent. Tim Harris said at the time that the deathbed confessional was nothing more than a “last-ditch effort.”^[50][51] Again there were accusations that authorities had coerced witnesses into accusing Scott and Carpenter of murder.^[52]

Michelle Murphy case

In 2019, Harris was accused of conspiring against wrongfully convicted Michelle Murphy, whose conviction was later overturned.^[53] She served 20 years before exoneration, being sentenced around the same time as April Wilkens.^[54] In 2014, arguments were heard on whether Harris should be "held in contempt for what Murphy's attorneys" said were "false statements."^[55] Harris had the file sealed by the Judge William Kellough so that the case cannot be reexamined.^[56]

The Innocence Project took over Murphy’s case in 2014. A judge then ordered that new DNA testing be conducted on biological evidence. Prosecutor Harris had initially implied at Murphy’s 1995 trial that blood found at the scene of her baby’s murder belonged to Murphy. Twenty years after she was convicted of the crime, testing showed that it was not her blood after all. According to the Tulsa World, Tim Harris all along possessed a 1995 report from the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation showing that Murphy’s blood type was different from that found at the scene.^{[57][58][59][60]} A judge later rejected attempts by Harris detractors to have him found in contempt for having “purposefully and willfully misled the jury” in the Murphy case.^[61]