Free Republic

A biker arrested after a deadly shootout involving bikers and police in Waco, Texas, argued Friday that it's a conflict of interest for a policeman to preside over the grand jury that may hear his case. Matthew Clendennen, who sued after he was one of 177 bikers arrested following the shootout, alleged in a court filing that James Head's presence as foreman of the randomly-selected 12-person panel should not be allowed.

We have been watching the Waco Twin Peaks biker shootout with interest. From the outset, this mass arrest seemed to have some problems, and now that more information has come to light, the City of Waco has opened itself up to serious civil liability. Why? Because this is a textbook example of mass arrests without individual probable cause. At the heart of every arrest, there must be probable cause. Now, of course, probable cause is a very low standard that can usually be met, but not likely in this case. From what is currently known, the Waco Police Department decided...

A Waco police detective was selected Wednesday to preside over a new McLennan County grand jury that could be the panel that considers the Twin Peaks shootings.

The Waco secret of the day is the surveillance video shot by the Don Carlos Mexican Restaurant in the Central Texas Market Place in Waco on May 17. Dallas Attorney Clint Broden wants a copy. Recent escapees from Syrian prisons need to know that there was a big news event in that shopping center that Sunday around lunch time. Some arbitrary number of people, some number in the low two hundreds, were detained. One hundred seventy-nine people were arrested. A couple of them were let out of jail that night. Police announced there were about 160 arrests. Eventually, after a...

One of the state district judges presiding over the Waco Twin Peaks bikers cases has reversed his decision to extend the term of a grand jury selected under the old method of selecting grand juries. The judge will now comply with a McLennan County, Texas, order that ends on July 8th, the much criticized practice of selecting “pick-a-pal” grand juries. This grand jury will likely decide the fate of some, if not all, of the 177 bikers arrested on May 17th after the Twin Peaks shootout. Although the judges and the McLennon County district clerk approved a plan on June...

Abel Reyna (AR) and Sgt. Patrick Swanton must have been sweating cold as they blitzed the media with apocalyptic visions of SAMCRO and the Mayans stabbing, shooting, and raping their way across Central Texas Marketplace during church hour, with the heroic police saving the day. But it was showtime, and the news cameras were already rolling. And thus, the "biker shootout" meme was born.

Attorneys for Don Carlos Mexican Restaurant in Waco are seeking to block a subpoena that would require restaurant officials to turn over security camera videos from the May 17 shootout in advance of a biker’s examining trial. Attorney Clint Broden, who represents Hewitt biker Matthew Clendennen, subpoenaed the video from Don Carlos, whose business is adjacent to the former Twin Peaks restaurant, where nine bikers were killed and 20 others were wounded. Bret Griffin, a Houston attorney who represents Don Carlos, said in a motion to quash the subpoena that Broden is on a “fishing expedition for non-party’s surveillance footage...