Matt Johnson, Judge of Texas’ 54th Judicial District and District Attorney Abel Reyna’s former law partner
Posted on 09/15/2017 12:33:02 PM PDT by Elderberry
All four of the Twin Peaks Biker Brawl cases taken away from McLennan County Judge Ralph Strother over the last two weeks are being turned over to Matt Johnson, Judge of Texas’ 54th Judicial District and District Attorney Abel Reyna’s former law partner.
Strother was recused, which is how lawyers spell removed, from three cases on August 30: George Bergman who is represented by Dallas attorney Clint Broden, Rolando Reyes who is defended by former Galveston judge Susan Criss, and Paul Landers, a bikers rights activist who has Austin attorney Millie L. Thompson trying to keep him out of the penitentiary will all now have to make their pleadings to Johnson. Houston attorney Casie Gotro, who represents Dallas Bandido Jake Carrizal, managed to recuse Strother earlier this week only to be stuck with Johnson, too.
After a pretrial hearing yesterday morning, Gotro declared that Johnson was easier to work with than Strother had been. High praise indeed. But a motion hearing tomorrow will determine whether Johnson really is an improvement over Johnson or if that is just an idealistic dream some people had once, like peace.
Broden, who also represents former Scimitar Motorcycle Club member Matthew Clendennen has filed three motions in Johnson’s court and all three betray the nasty and unfair way the whole courthouse gang in Waco, including judges, prosecutors and even some of the defense attorneys have treated the 154 surviving indictees and the 38 unindicted, alleged conspirators in the Twin Peaks case.
Unethical Spying
In one motion Clendennen and Broden want Johnson to either dismiss Clendennen’s indictment or disqualify the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office for spying on a privileged conversation between the two men.
“Undersigned Counsel,” Broden wrote, “has learned from the discovery produced in this case that the McClennan County District Attorney’s Office arranged to be given copies of a phone call between counsel and Mr. Clendennen. This phone call took place when Mr. Clendennen was detained in the McLennan County jail under a $1,000,000 bond set by the Justice of the Peace Walter Peterson.”
Dramatizing Danger
Broden also wants McLennan County’s prosecutorial team to tone down the histrionic show of force the team creates every time a Twin Peaks defendant has a hearing in the case. Yesterday, for example, there were eight armed and armored deputies in the courtroom for what was supposed to be a jury selection hearing for what might have been Carrizal’s trial. It was a preposterous demonstration that was intended to prove that the Bandidos Motorcycle Club is a public danger and might attack at any moment.
In fact such an attack has never occurred anywhere in the world in the entire history of motorcycle clubs. There was a scene portraying such an attack in the 1991 Brian Bosworth movie Stone Cold. It has only happened in a kind of tongue-in-cheek, wide screen, escape hallucination. The cases against all the Twin Peaks defendants seem based on conflating reality and pulp fiction for jurors in a small, conservative, isolated city. Most of what these jurors know about motorcycle clubs comes from drama rather than personal experience or observation. Broden argues in that motion that the presence of unnecessary security will prejudice the jury and deny Clendennen his inalienable right to a fair trial.
“One accused of a crime is entitled to have his guilt or innocence determined solely on the basis of the evidence introduced at trial,” Broden argues, “and not on grounds of official suspicion, indictment, continued custody, or other circumstances not adduced as proof at trial.”
In other words, Broden wants the prosecutorial team to prove that extra security is actually needed when Matt Clendennen goes to court.
Prove It
Finally, Broden has moved to dismiss Clendennen’s indictment because he has been denied his right to a speedy trial.
“Every defendant,” Broden writes, “is guaranteed the right to a speedy trial by the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Article 1, Section 10 of the Texas Constitution.”
“Mr. Clendennen filed a Speedy Trial Demand on or about November 12, 2015 – two days after he was indicted. Likewise, on or about January 27, 2016, he filed a pleading vigorously opposing the State’s First Motion for Continuance and renewing his Speedy Trial Demand.”
It has now been 29 months since Abellino Reyna decided to shock and awe all the witnesses to the Biker Brawl into silence. It might be about time to find out why. The explanation doesn’t have to be true. It just has to be plausible which is something that has so far eluded the whole, chummy, McClennen County Courthouse fraternity.
How Johnson rules on these motions, if he rules, will indicate whether any of the Twin Peaks defendants now have any chance of getting a fair trial or not.
It take huevos to file delaying motions while simultaneously complaining about your client’s right to a speedy trial.
I have no love for these “clubs”. But the hamhanded way the “authorities” in Waco have handled this beggars belief. It’s been a milder sort of Branch Davidian attack. The cops just went nuts. All they had to do was set up a strong police presence out in the open and none of this would have occurred. No, they wanted violence so they could get headlines. Sick stupid and corrupt. That’s these city “officials”. All probably kin.
Texas Gator must have dozed off, because he’s usually here with his “continuing support” for “Whacko’s Brand” of Just Us!
IBTG
Meet the new judge.. same as the old judge...
This whole sordid matter is an indictment of Whacko and McLennan County, Texas. Law Enforcement should never. behave like mercenary killers as the have in Whacko. For those who actually broke the law, including the Whacko PD and their “LEO Buddies” who shot people that day need to all be tried in Federal Court so we can have some assurance that Justice was actually done, and that ALL the guilty are properly punished.
Talk about corruption, Sgt. Swanton was running his mouth again last week.
Don’t worry, it ruins other threads, too.
Matt Johnson, Judge of Texas’ 54th Judicial District and District Attorney Abel Reyna’s former law partner
Yeah...no incest there. :-)
Like a bad case of jock itch.
grounds for an appeal
ROTFLMAO!
“and that ALL the guilty are properly punished.”
Do you think we will get any of the bikers charged as pedophiles?
Truth hurts?
Even the bikers involved in the fight say the cops saved lives that day!
“The cops just went nuts.”
Should they have allowed 200 gangsters to shoot it out perhaps killing innocent women and children?
“Do you think we will get any of the bikers charged as pedophiles?”
Hey HA, looks like TG has “awakened!” All two of his brain cells are “sparing with each other!” Now he’s conflating the Whacko bikers with pedophilia!
“All they had to do was set up a strong police presence out in the open and none of this would have occurred. “
Cossacks stated that they observed the cop coverage before the Bandidos and felt safe thinking that there was no way the Bandidos would act violent with all the police there.
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