Midnight In Waco

Yesterday, after six months, the Tenth Court of Appeals in Waco, Texas ruled that McLennan County District Attorney Abelino Reyna is the law in this part of the Southwest. Whether you like it or not. He won the election. Not you.

The appeals court thinks that what Reyna has done so far – ordering police to arrest 177 mostly innocent people on the basis of their attire, ordering a cop to create an arrest affidavit out of cow pies, ordering a nitwit justice of the peace to hold all these innocents on million dollar, or more, bonds, and ordering Waco’s very own Foghorn Leghorn to slander these innocent people and distribute very unflattering photos of them worldwide – is “due process.”

One of those who was wrongly arrested and imprisoned is a former Scimitars Motorcycle Club patch holder named Matt Clendennen. His advocate is a Dallas attorney named Clint Broden. For several reasons they have been trying to remove Reyna from prosecuting the criminal cases he personally crafted out of gunsmoke:

“First,” Broden wrote, “it was clear from the hearing that Mr. Reyna orchestrated the wholesale arrest of the motorcyclists even when all three of the Waco Assistant Police Chiefs on the scene that day correctly determined most of the motorcyclists to be mere witnesses.”

“Second, despite Mr. Reyna’s testimony under oath that he had extensive discussions with Waco Police Detective Manual Chavez about the preparation of the fill-in-the-blank arrest warrant affidavits for the 177 motorcyclists, Detective Chavez testified under oath that he never even saw Mr. Reyna that night. In other words, both gave testimony under oath that completely contradicted one another.”

And finally, Reyna is being sued by about 100 of those “mere witnesses” for something more than $1 billion so he has an obvious financial interests in convicting as many of his victims as possible.

Clendennen and Broden want some judge somewhere to hand the case over to an independent prosecutor who wouldn’t have a stake in continuing to rationalize Reyna’s conduct for the last 782 days. Playing by the rules, dutifully following the Zeno-esque absurdities of criminal procedure Waco-style, they asked Reyna’s former law partner, a crooked judge named Matt Johnson, who just happens to be in charge of Clendennen’s case, to recuse Reyna. He stalled for awhile, as if he was actually thinking about it, as if he was spending his time at a big, oak table in one of those law libraries on TV with a half dozen thick books open in front of him. Then he said “no.”

So, 200 days ago Broden filed a document called a writ of mandamus with the Tenth Court of Appeals. Mandamus is lawyer Latin. The word is an uncle of the English word mandatory. Black’s Law Dictionary defines it: “as a command issuing from a common law court of competent jurisdiction , in the name of the state or sovereign, directed to some corporation, officer or inferior court, requiring the performance of a particular duty therein specified, which duty results from the official station of the party to whom the writ is directed or from operation of law. In the specific relief which it affords, a mandamus operates much in the nature of a bill of chancery for specific performance, the principal difference being that the latter remedy is resorted to for the redress of purely private wrongs, or the enforcement of contract rights, while the former generally has for its object the performance of obligations arising out of official station, or specially imposed by law on the respondent.”

Less carefully stated, Broden thought Johnson had a legal duty to remove Reyna from the case, Johnson refused to do it, so Broden wanted the appeals court to tell Johnson to do it.

After sitting in their big leather chairs in their big libraries, with their brown bourbons and their open books before them, after much bourbon disappeared and many books were put away, all three of the appeals judges replied in writing to Broden’s writ.

“Fundamentally, Clendennen seeks to recuse the McLennan County District Attorney and thereby prevent the elected district attorney, and all employees of that office, from further participation in the preparation for and trial of Clendennen. The motion, filed and heard in the district court, was denied. Clendennen now seeks review of that ruling by a petition for writ of mandamus asking this appellate court to compel the trial court to set aside its order denying the recusal motion and to issue a writ of mandamus which compels the trial court to order the district attorney’s recusal from the prosecution of Clendennen.

“Mandamus is an extraordinary remedy. It is to be utilized only when other legal remedies are inadequate. Thus, if there is another legal remedy available to Clendennen, a petition for writ of mandamus should be denied. An appeal is normally an adequate legal remedy for trial court errors. In this instance, Clendennen contends that he not be compelled to suffer through a criminal trial by a district attorney who should be recused only to have to present the issue on appeal and then suffer the vagaries of a subsequent review and analysis, and possibly retrial, by an attorney pro tem assigned to prosecute the case against him. The district attorney is obviously aware of the risk of such an outcome and the attendant cost of the discovery, trial, and appeals that result would entail, and much of that work could not be used by the attorney pro tem; if it gets to that.”

“Clendennen’s unsupported assertion that “no right minded prosecutor would have sought an indictment against” Clendennen does not rise to the level of a basis for the district attorney’s personal liability.”

“The events and circumstances surrounding what has come to be commonly referred to as the “Twin Peaks shootout” are unique in McLennan County. That aside, the decision making on that day by the district attorney, though no doubt well intended, came very close to being an abuse of his professional discretion. Particularly, his not deferring to law enforcement on the issues of arrest and reporting can certainly be called into question. However, even though I have significant concerns about his actions and about how close he was to abusing his discretion, I believe that he did not cross that line.”

And Justice Al Scoggins was the most succinct. After studying all those law books night after night he simply wrote that Clendennen’s “petition for writ of mandamus is denied.”

So there is still no justice for Clendennen and there cannot be until he is eventually, wrongfully convicted years from now, and he files his appeal and his conviction is reversed years after that, and his civil case is tried for years after that and he finally negotiates a settlement.

The Bandidos even switched the venue to Waco specifically to start a confrontation with their rivals because that’s where the Cossacks were based

What do you base that on? Some rumor?

According to a man who claims he was the one who made the change of location, from having been previously scheduled in Austin, or San Antonio (I forget which) to Waco, the reasoning was to hold the meeting at a more centralized location. There was pending State legislation(?), and "news" of efforts of COC&I regarding that legislation was central agenda for the meeting.

I personally heard the man say this at a meet-up that was held at the American Legion Hall in Elm Mott.

He was an American Legion member (and may have even been among lead organizers of that after-the-Twin Peaks-fiasco meeting?) and said he was not a member of Bandidos MC, nor had acted on their behest, or anyone else's request, saying it had been ENTIRELY his own idea to hold that particualr meeting in Waco.

I believed that when I heard it ---but who knows, maybe he could have been a great liar, and myself too gullible? That's possible --as always-- but in this instance I have no reason to doubt what the man was saying was the truth. He was convincing. I chatted him up a bit too afterwards, and he seemed genuine. If memory serves --the man was member of one of the "veterans" motorcycle orgs., and iirc was member of U.S. Defenders.

Still, until I see something compelling to the contrary, I'll take his word over your own repetition of a rumor that may have originated with Swanton.

even though it was only supposed to be a county-wide meeting.

It was a State regionally meeting, and generally speaking, open to all, even non-members. Pretty much any motorcyclist is welcome at such events, as long as they'd behave themselves. Or so I've been told...

As I've come understand, the COC&I was never organized at "county" level anyway, although there were (and still are?) several Texas state regional districts.

The rationale was to have ONE meeting to convey information pertaining to pending State of Texas legislation that related to motorcyclists --- instead of the man having to travel all around the State (from San Antonio-Austin, to Corpus Christie, to Lubbock or Amarillo, out West to wherever, maybe El Paso(?) then back to Houston and D-FW areas? It made sense to me when I heard it put that way...

Meh, we’ve been over all this many times with the criminal biker gang apologists around here but it just doesn’t sink in for some reason.

"criminal biker gang apologists"???

As for the information I've just now posted --- I've been over it more than once, but it doesn't seem to sink in with people like you -- for some reason -- and I'm not a "criminal gang apologist" either. What I am doing is working at setting the record straight. If you have a problem with that, you can kiss my ass.

Perhaps you missed it when I posted it before. But now you know -- what the organizer of the event -- the man who made the decision to move the meeting said about why he chose Waco.

For all I know, the man could be a federal agent?

I never thought of that before, but it comes to mind as possibility, being as it seems to me that Feds were quite likely to have been working at stirring up conflict between the MC's --which would lead to yet more serious altercations --- that would lead to yet more arrests --- which could then provide leverage for LEO's to extract information --- which could then lead to Federal level indictments (which eventually was a result) though I still doubt that the man who scheduled the COC&I meeting in Waco did so for any reasons other than those which he explained were his reasons...

I do not know for sure that he's not a Fed (the Feds won't say who is, and who is not in their employ, or were acting as informants) or even know that he was telling the real truth about why he decided to move the meeting to Waco, though I did accept his explanation when I heard it. All I do know is that I was looking straight at the man when he explained it and I am relaying the information best as I can, right here and now. Do you have a problem with that?

Seems like there was rumor to the effect you've just now repeated, and it was upsetting to the man who told those in attendance at the American Legion Hall what I'm telling you now, and was the reason he told everyone that (while holding a microphone) best as I can remember it. In fact I think he made a presentation "from the floor" so to speak, then later on when on an elevated stage in the same room repeated the information -- that it had been his own personal decision, and nobody else's.

I also had then, and have still now no reason to doubt that he was NOT a Bandido ---as he took pains to make perfectly clear, more than once. He said all of this kind of stuff in front of 30, to 40 bikers. If the man WAS a Bandido -- if he was not as he was representing himself to be -- holding some position within COC&I -- somebody there would have known it, although there were only a scant few Bandidos there -- maybe 2, or 3, if I'm remembering that aspect correctly -- though many, if not most of those in attendance did not wear colors to the event, though an exception to that being a few from small MC's local to the Waco area had numerous members in attendance sporting colors. Something like that...best as I can recall. The rest of those present being of other MC's, and members of riding clubs and veteran's groups. There were a few woman there who had lost husbands. I won't name any names of women (which I do not recall) or names of the deceased (I recall the name of one of the deceased) since that is not being crucial info to me, or to this point of conversation.

Clint Broden was also in attendance. I went there to hear what Broden would have to say, and to see if I could gain any useful information.

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