Free Republic

How 177 arrests led to no convictions — a tangled, seven-year tale of prosecutorial hubris and tenacious defense. Citing pending civil lawsuits, Reyna declined to speak on the record for this article, but he vigorously denied all the charges made in the affidavits secured by Broden, and he disputed The Tribune-Herald’s characterization of his actions. In the end, his primary wasn’t even close: Johnson defeated him by nearly 20 points. Before his term ended, Reyna would dismiss all but 24 of the bikers’ cases, with Johnson dismissing the final two dozen in April 2019. Carrizal was the only biker to...

The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to consider an appeal by the city of Waco and McLennan County in lawsuits filed by bikers arrested in the 2015 Twin Peaks shootout that left nine bikers dead and 20 injured. Attorneys for the defendants asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review an April decision by a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that reinstated the lawsuits of about 90 bikers whose civil rights cases were dismissed last year by U.S. District Judge Alan Albright of Waco. The federal appeals court panel reversed an Albright ruling that held a...

Exclusive: Joseph Farah reviews Obama eligibility issue to mark ex-president's purported birthday Donald Trump was hardly the first "birther." Neither was I. Nor was my colleague Jerome Corsi. And neither was Hillary Clinton. That honor belongs to one person and one person alone – Barack Obama. We all followed suit, but were not the first to raise it. Obama went to extreme lengths to conceal his past. And, indeed, if he was born in the U.S. and was eligible to serve as president, he certainly did his best to create the mystery that led to the question being asked. Years...

Nearly 90 bikers claim they were falsely arrested after deadly shootout The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has reinstated the lawsuits – at least temporarily – of about 90 bikers arrested in the 2015 Twin Peaks shootout whose civil rights cases were thrown out last year by U.S. District Judge Alan Albright. A three-judge panel of the federal appeals court reversed Albright’s previous ruling that a grand jury’s indictment of the 90 bikers “served to break the chain of causation” for their false arrest claims and sent the cases back to Albright for further consideration in light of the...

If you ask Paul Looney, a Houston defense attorney, about the Twin Peaks biker case, he’ll tell you there’s one person who knows more about it than anyone else alive: his trial-preparation specialist, Roxanne Avery. An entire wall of her home office in Norman, Okla., is covered with wallet-size mug shots of the nearly 200 bikers arrested, as well as photographs of the nine men who died that day, seven years ago, after a violent brawl in a Waco parking lot. Each picture is layered with Post-it Notes and details about the subjects: ages, road names (Cheech, Chain, Drama, Sidetrack,...

he 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has dismissed former Waco Police Chief Brent Stroman and Assistant Chief Robert Lanning from lawsuits filed by bikers alleging false arrest after the 2015 Twin Peaks shootout, but left former McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna as a defendant. The ruling, issued late last week, is the most recent development in the six-year legal battle waged after hundreds of Bandidos and Cossacks and their respective support clubs squared off in the Twin Peaks parking lot while families were dining or shopping May 15, 2015, at the busy Central Texas Marketplace. About 134 bikers...

Five years ago Sunday nine died and 18 were injured after a shootout erupted between rival motorcycle groups at Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco. The shootout was the deadliest and most high-profile event in the Waco area since the Waco siege of the Branch Davidian compound in 1993. The bikers said the agenda at the regional meeting of the Texas Confederation of Clubs and Independents (COC&I), a statewide biker group coalition based in Tyler, involved political issues regarding the rights of motorcyclists. But trouble was brewing between the Bandidos and the Cossacks. Eighteen Waco police officers and four state troopers...

A federal judge in Waco has dismissed 13 civil rights lawsuits filed by 45 bikers arrested after the May 2015 shootout at Twin Peaks in Waco, a ruling that suggests more dismissals will be coming. U.S. Judge Alan Albright, in a 13-page order issued Monday, dismissed civil rights claims against the city of Waco, McLennan County, former District Attorney Abel Reyna, former Waco Police Chief Brent Stroman and a handful of other Waco and Texas Department of Public Safety officers. The 45 plaintiffs were among 192 bikers who were arrested and among 155 who were indicted in the Sunday noon-hour...

Before the Court are: Defendants Frost and Schwartz’s Motion to Dismiss(ECF Nos. 57& 76);the City Defendants’ Joint Motion to Dismiss (ECF Nos. 58& 76);Defendants Reyna and McLennan County’s Motion to Dismiss (ECF Nos. 59& 78);and the respective responses, replies,and sur-replies thereto. The Court, having considered the Motions and applicable law,finds that the Motions should be DENIED or DENIED in PART and GRANTED in PART as discussed below. I. INTRODUCTION This case stems from the Twin Peaks restaurant incident on May 17, 2015.Members of the Bandidos and Cossacks Motorcycle Clubs, along with hundreds of other motorcycling enthusiasts,converged on the restaurant. Tensions...

Be warned, that I am now going choke you with pages of legalese but the words might turn out to be important for you to know or for your lawyer to know. If you get lost reading it just skip to the end of this story. Last month, six days before Christmas, Judge Jim Jordan, who mostly makes his money as a professional mediator and arbiter, issued the following order. The Legal Notice Please take notice that the Waco Police Department and the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office are accepting requests for the return of property related to the May...

Judge Ralph Strother is being forced to retire due to age. Now, four lawyers are vying to be his replacement. Strother was told he would be forced to retire due to age. He's recently made headlines with his involvement in the Baylor fraternity rape case and the Twin Peaks trials. The first forum in the contested 19th judicial court race started off with a bang Thursday. "I’ve tried 120 jury trials," criminal defense attorney Thomas West said. "I’ve been in the battles, I've been in the fire, I know what has to happen. In trials you have to make split...

A federal judge dismissed McLennan County as a defendant in a civil rights lawsuit filed by three bikers arrested after the 2015 Twin Peaks shootout but ruled the plaintiffs can pursue claims against the city of Waco and seven individual defendants. In a 22-page ruling Monday, U.S. District Judge Alan Albright threw out some of the claims filed by bikers Bradley Terwilliger, Benjamin Matcek and Jimmy Dan Smith, as well as dismissing the county and four Waco police officers from the suit. The lawsuit, filed by the three bikers who were never indicted in the deadly shootout, is one of...

Well Respected Attorney Gotro Correctly Asked a Judge for his Recusal, and won a Mistrial in the Highly Publicized Twin Peak Trial. The Judiciary Were Not Happy. She Was then Hunted, Stalked and Skewered to set an Example. A dynamic Houston trial attorney widely respected for her work freeing a Katy football coach from prison can’t practice law for the next three years after the State Bar of Texas suspended her license following a trio of grievances. The complaints against Casie Gotro all centered on three similar claims that she failed to keep clients up to date on the status...

The law license of the firebrand Houston attorney who won a mistrial in the only Twin Peaks shootout case to go to trial has been suspended by the State Bar of Texas. Casie Gotro will be unable to practice law for three years and must pay $59,000 in restitution to clients she failed to serve, the State Bar announced Monday. The decision comes a year after Gotro and Dallas attorney Clint Broden won the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association Percy Foreman Lawyers of the Year award for their representation of bikers in the deadly 2015 showdown at the former Twin...

An attorney for six bikers arrested after the 2015 Twin Peaks shootout in Waco is asking a judge to appoint a “special master” to oversee the return of items seized from almost 200 bikers who went to jail. Houston attorney Paul Looney filed a civil petition Wednesday morning in Waco’s 414th State District Court asking Judge Vicki Menard to appoint someone to help “make order out of all this chaos,” as Looney put it. Looney, representing Ray Nelson, Phillip Ray White, Cody Ledbetter, Marcus Ryan Pilkington, William English and Morgan English, said he is trying to help them and others...

Officers arrested 177 people at the Twin Peaks shooting in 2015. Four years later, only one person has stood trial. All of the other cases have been dismissed. Four years ago terrified diners were forced to take cover after shots rang out at a Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco. What is now known as the deadliest biker shootout in U.S. history left nine people dead and 20 wounded. Waco will not soon forget photos from the scene, showing bikers, some with guns blazing, crowding the restaurant. “A great majority of them had guns, hatchets, knives and other deadly weapons with...

Biker Jeff Battey thought that after the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office dismissed charges against him and the remaining Twin Peaks defendants, it was not too much to ask to have all records of his 2015 arrest destroyed so he could move on with his life. It appears that won’t happen. Now Battey, a former Marine who still has a bullet in his arm from the May 2015 Twin Peaks shootout, is threatening to sue the DA’s office for malicious prosecution, his attorney said. Waco attorney Seth Sutton, said a district attorney’s office representative recently told him that the office...

Waco Biker Dismissals an Attempt to Avoid Millions in Lawsuits. In the interests of justice, on April 2, 2019 all remaining charges related to the May 17, 2015 Twin Peaks shootings in Waco, Texas have been dismissed by the newly elected McLennan County District Attorney Barry Johnson. These dismissals are a significant victory in the history of motorcycle club culture and the fight against motorcycle profiling and discrimination. Although this concludes the criminal chapter of Twin Peaks, the legal battles are far from over. There are currently over 100 civil rights claims pending and the official press release announcing the...

With social media, overtly liberal politicians and some police chiefs, and people watching too many movies or TV shows like “Sons of Anarchy,” I strongly believe our efforts are misguided and have served to backfire – shutting down trust and support from the very most patriotic and law enforcement-supportive groups out there. In this day and age where everyone group seems to align itself with bashing and hating on cops, it appears that several police agencies, and even the State of Texas, in an orchestrated effort, have taken aim at motorcycle clubs – casual fraternal groups – lumping them in...

Defense Attorneys in Dallas said some of their clients had their guns, motorcycles, vehicles and other property returned to them once their case was refused, Harris said for some reason he's still left without answers. One of the Twin Peaks bikers arrested said even though it's been three years since the deadly shooting, police still have not given him back his personal belongings that were seized. Patrick Harris case was thrown out by District Attorney Abel Reyna, but he said he's having a hard time putting this all behind him without having what he said is legally his. Defense Attorneys...