Twin Peaks biker seeks to reopen disqualification hearing with new judge

Twin Peaks defendant Matthew Clendennen wants to reopen the discussion about disqualifying McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna, but this time, he wants another judge to hear the motion.

Clendennen's attorney, Clint Broden, filed a motion Thursday asking to reopen his request to disqualify Reyna from prosecuting Clendennen's case and seeking to recuse 54th State District Judge Matt Johnson only from rehearing the disqualification motion.

Johnson rejected a similar motion from Broden last October. That ruling was upheld by Waco's 10th Court of Appeals.

But while Broden is seeking a similar result, he is asking this time on different grounds and wants another judge to hear it.

Last year, Broden sought Reyna's disqualification primarily on claims that Reyna lied at a hearing about how the identical arrest warrant affidavits were handled after the May 17, 2015, Twin Peaks shootout and that Reyna has a financial stake in the outcome of the cases because he is a named defendant in civil rights lawsuits filed by more than 100 bikers.

Broden's motion to reopen the matter alleges Reyna should be disqualified because he likely will be a "material witness" at Twin Peaks trials for his role in the decision to arrest 177 bikers en masse after the shootout that left nine dead and more than a dozen injured.

"Indeed, it is painfully obvious that former Chief of Police Brent Stroman lent his badge to Abelino Reyna on May 15, 2017, and that Mr. Reyna completely disregarded the opinion of at least three assistant police chiefs and two detectives who were on the scene that day," Broden's motion states. "Thus, in an ordinary case, one would question the police about how Mr. Clendennen came to be arrested despite having no participation in the violence at Twin Peaks.

"In this case, Abel Reyna held the badge and only he can answer some of these questions."

Broden alleged in the initial motion that Reyna lied at a hearing in August 2016 when he said he gave specific, detailed instructions to Waco police Detective Manuel Chavez the night of the Twin Peaks shootings about making sure the officer had spoken to others so he could swear that "every single line and word" in the Twin Peaks arrest warrant affidavits are true.

Broden alleges Johnson should be recused from hearing Reyna's disqualification motion because the judge failed to disclose to the parties that he and Reyna are former law partners.

"As a result, Judge Johnson's order denying disqualification is voidable since there was no waiver of a mandatory ground for recusal," the motion states.

Another article from TheAgingRebel http://www.agingrebel.com/15816

Waco Motion Campaign Continues September 28, 2017

Dallas Attorney Clint Broden dropped another three motions totaling about 60 pages on the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office, and alleged office coconspirator, the Honorable Matt Johnson, today.

Broden filed the motions on behalf of his clients Burton George Bergman and Matt Clendennen. Bergman is scheduled to be tried in Judge Johnson’s court on November 6. Bergman and Clendennen are both charged with plotting to turn a brunch into a bloodbath.

Very many people who both are and aren’t Mensa think County District Attorney Abelino Reyna has a credibility problem. Some of this skepticism grew out of a previous motion to disqualify Reyna from prosecuting Clendennen. At a hearing on that motion, Reyna testified that he had no financial interest in the case, even though about 100 lawsuits for false arrest have been filed against him in federal court. He also testified that the Waco detective, Manuel Chavez, who signed the fictitious arrest warrants used to falsely imprison 177 people after the Twin Peaks brawl, collaborated on the document rather than just signing what he was told to sign.

Lies

Broden asked Reyna, “Prior to the affidavit being given to Mr. Chavez or Detective Chavez to sign, did you allow him to have any input?”

“Absolutely. Absolutely,” Reyna lied. “And a lot of the input – that’s what I was telling you about the hole from communication. There was a gap in communication between what was going on at Twin Peaks and what was going on at the convention center. And I remember getting the affidavit and it was, I believe, a draft somewhat of it. And I remember the draft made its way to Manny Diaz…I mean, Manny Chavez. And Manny said something like… to the effect of, this looks good. But at that point in time, I cautioned him and told him, Manny, you need to read every single line and word in this affidavit and if you cannot swear to it, then you need to go back out there and get on the phone and call the people at Twin Peaks and make for sure that you can swear to everything in this affidavit.”

Apparently lying under oath is like crank. Some people just can’t stop doing it. “And I…I told him that and I stressed it to him. And he says, no, okay, I will. And I said, that’s a draft. We’re working on it. You better make sure that you can swear to everything in that affidavit. And you need to go back out there and talk to the people at Twin Peaks. You need to talk to the people that had the Intel leading up to it,• the people that were…that were sitting out there watching these guys try to kill each other. You need to know every single bit of it. And he said, I will, I will.”

More Testimony

Chavez survived being thrown under that bus, and was much more succinct than Reyna when Broden questioned him.

“ Okay,” Broden asked the detective. “Did you read over a draft or a final copy?”

“It was the final copy.”

“And do you ever recall Mr. Reyna saying words to the effect, now, Mr. Chavez, you need to make sure that everything in here is true and I need you to call people and make sure it’s true before you sign your name because you’re signing your name? Did any conversation like that take place?”

“ I never spoke to Mr. Reyna that night,” Chavez replied.

Assistant Waco Police Chief Robert Lanning, who was the Acting Chief the day of the Biker Brawl, also remembered events of May 17, 2015 differently than Reyna. Landing testified that he didn’t want to arrest the detainees that day, that neither of the two other assistant police chiefs on scene wanted to arrest the detainees and that only Reyna wanted everybody arrested based on the words and other symbols on their clothing.

Not Quite Legal

Reyna wound up staying on the case, rather than being replaced by a special prosecutor, because Judge Johnson denied Broden’s motion. But technically, legally, Johnson shouldn’t have been presiding over any hearing in which Reyna testified.

Johnson and Reyna previously practiced law together in a firm called Reyna & Johnson and Reyna, Johnson & Reed. Reyna & Johnson LLP described itself as “a small organization in the legal services industry located in Waco, Texas,” founded “in 2002,” that had “six fulltime employees” and generated “an estimated $362,486 USD in annual revenue.”

Johnson’s presidence over the hearing was illegal. Broden thinks the relevant law is in the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure and supported by a Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas ruling in 2011 in a case titled George Gaal v. Texas. The law says that a “judge must recuse (himself) in any proceeding in which…the judge or a lawyer with whom the judge previously practiced law has been a material witness concerning the proceeding.”

Reyna testified. Reyna and Johnson had been partners. Johnson should have recused himself.

The motions Broden filed today ask: 1) That the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office be disqualified from prosecuting Bergman; 2) that Johnson be disqualified from ruling on that motion; and 3) that another hearing on Clendennen’s motion to disqualify Reyna be held with somebody other Johnson presiding.

Reyna issued a statement when he heard the news. “I have read Mr. Broden’s motion and request,” he wrote. “Based on the facts and the law, I’m not worried about it.”

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