Free Republic

Houston – Lawyers who represent the manager of a neighboring restaurant next door to Twin Peaks say an attorney for a defendant in a shootout on May 17 is threatening contempt and arrest if their clinet does not comply with a request for surveillance video. Labeling a subpoena for the surveillance video from the cameras of Don Carlos Mexican Restaurant a “fishing expedition,” lawyers for the restaurant’s management termed “threatening…with orders of contempt and arrest” a request by a Dallas attorney in advance of an examining trial set for August 10 in Precinct 1 Justice Court by Judge Pete Peterson....

Two days after a state district judge extended the term of a McLennan County grand jury to consider the Twin Peaks shootout case, he changed his mind and withdrew the order. Judge Matt Johnson of Waco’s 54th State District Court declined Thursday to discuss why he reversed his decision, but his order says a new grand jury plan for McLennan County was approved on June 11, which requires selection of all McLennan County grand juries from a randomly drawn panel. While Johnson declined comment, McLennan County District Clerk Jon Gimble said the judge thought it best to use the new...

Dallas Attorney Clint Broden is still throwing rocks at what he has started to call Waco’s “Publicity Machine.” In a 30 page emergency petition filed this morning with the Court of Appeals for the Tenth District of Texas, Broden wrote: “Whether real or perceived, there is a noxious odor surrounding the investigation by the Waco Police and the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office with regard to the “Twin Peaks Shooting” and the wholesale arrest of 177 motorcyclists based on identical, “fill-in-the-name” criminal complaints. “Nevertheless, as Justice Brandeis said: ‘Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases....

The only biker to sue in connection with a mass arrest following a deadly shootout at a Texas restaurant argued in a petition filed Wednesday that he was unfairly slapped with a gag order after publicly criticizing how the investigation has been handled. Matthew Clendennen, one of 177 people arrested after the May 17 shootout in Waco in which nine people were killed, said the order in the state's criminal case against him is unconstitutional and outside the court's jurisdiction because he has not been indicted. The order prevents attorneys, witnesses and law enforcement officers involved in the criminal case...

A Dallas attorney who represents Hewitt biker Matthew Clendennen filed an emergency appeal Wednesday seeking to lift a gag order a judge imposed in Clendennen’s case on Tuesday. Clint Broden, in his emergency petition for writ of mandamus filed with Waco’s 10th Court of Appeals, argues that because his client has not been indicted, 54th State District Judge Matt Johnson had no jurisdiction to impose a gag order, which bars Broden, prosecutors, witnesses and police officials from publicly discussing Clendennen’s case. The gag order violates Clendennen’s right to free speech and the judge’s findings to adopt the gag order are...

Dallas attorney Clint Broden has been loudly skeptical of the repeated and clumsy lies official Waco has been telling the public since nine men were murdered outside the Twin Peaks restaurant on May 17. Broden has been sending out daily press releases and holding news conferences on the case for two weeks. Today State District Judge Matt Johnson, at the instigation of District Attorney Abel Reyna, forbid Broden from discussing the Twin Peaks Massacre publically. Johnson issued the order at a subpoena hearing. Broden had subpoenaed video shot by the Twin Peaks restaurant on May 17 in order to better...

McLennan County hired former prosecutor and longtime Waco attorney David Deaconson on Tuesday to represent local judges who are being subpoenaed because of their involvement in the ongoing Twin Peaks biker case. Deaconson said he will represent McLennan County Justice of the Peace W.H. “Pete” Peterson at a hearing Thursday in Waco’s 54th State District Court. The hearing was requested by Corsicana attorney John H. Jackson, who represents biker Ronald Atterbury, 44, of Gatesville. Atterbury has filed an application for habeas corpus, challenging the legality of his confinement and claiming that his $1 million bond is unreasonable. Jackson also subpoenaed...

Judge Matt Johnson of Waco’s 54th State District Court has ruled to allow a Dallas attorney to obtain Twin Peaks surveillance video from the restaurant franchisee to help him prepare for an August hearing, but the judge placed a protective order on the video, preventing it from being released to the public. The judge also placed a gag order on prosecutors and attorneys involved in the case, limiting both sides from discussing the case in the media. Johnson said he is concerned about causing a problem with jury pools if the video is released. Attorney Clint Broden, who obtained the...

Clint Broden is starting to look like the last lawyer in Texas with huevos. Most of the attorneys in the Twin Peaks case are dithering and telling their clients not to make too much noise. This morning Broden, who represents Scimitar Matt Clendennen in a federal civil rights lawsuit and who is trying to subpoena one of the many video recordings of the May 17 massacre, threw an affidavit at McLennan County District Attorney Abelino Reyna, Assistant District Attorney Michael Jarrett, Waco Police propagandist W. Patrick Swanton and Waco Police Chief Brent Stroman. Broden filed his affidavit in preparation for...

All presumptive evidence of felony should be admitted cautiously; for the law holds it better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent party suffer.” Why Do The Due Process Concerns Of Innocents Outweigh The State Interest Of Convicting Those That Are Responsible For The Shooting In Waco? The Blackstone Ratio, a concept attributed to a famous jurist of the 1860’s named Sir William Blackstone, is commonly accepted as a cornerstone of civil liberties and a free society. Closely related to the idea that an individual is innocent until proven guilty, the Blackstone Ratio means that democratic societies do...

The May 17 war zone around Twin Peaks cost lives, liberties and livelihoods, but local companies monitoring GPS ankle bracelets and writing bail bonds have enjoyed a virtual biker bonanza in recent months. While McLennan County officials have been trying to sort out how to deal with the multiple ripple effects from the shootout and mass arrests of 177 bikers, Waco’s Recovery Healthcare Corp. and local bail bond companies have chalked up banner profits. As of Friday, of the 177 arrested, three posted $1 million bonds and 163 were released from jail after their attorneys and prosecutors negotiated reduced bonds...

A Dallas attorney who is seeking the video of the May 17 biker shootout from Twin Peaks filed a motion Friday to sanction the city of Waco for filing what he called a “frivolous” motion to quash the subpoena for the video. Dallas attorney Clint Broden, who represents Matthew Alan Clendennen, a member of the Scimitars Motorcycle Club, obtained a subpoena for the shootout video Monday and said Patrick Keating, a Dallas attorney who represents the Twin Peaks franchisee, had agreed to honor that subpoena on Friday morning. Broden, other attorneys and many from the general public have called for...

The city of Waco is seeking to quash a subpoena issued to the former Waco Twin Peaks franchise holder for video of the May 17 shootout that left nine bikers dead and 20 wounded. Dallas attorney Clint Broden, who represents Matthew Alan Clendennen, a member of the Scimitars Motorcycle Club, obtained a subpoena after speaking with Patrick Keating, a Dallas attorney who represents the Twin Peaks franchisee. Broden said he sought the video to help him prepare for an Aug. 10 examining trial set in Clendennen’s case in McLennan County Justice of the Peace W.H. “Pete” Peterson’s court. The subpoena...

Twin Peaks Update #3 I’ve been asked for a timeline of the events leading up to the Twin Peaks Incident. In Mid-March, Waco PD personnel became aware of rising tensions between the Bandidos and Cossacks in the state and the Waco area. The two gangs, as classified by the Texas Department of Public Safety Gang Intel Unit, were increasing their violence against each other. It was reported that the increase was due to the Cossacks wearing a “Texas rocker patch” on their vests. As all of the violent events between these individuals has already been reported in detail and in...

Nuclear power plant technicians, senior military officers, FBI contractors and an employee of “a highly-secretive Department of Defense agency” with a Top Secret clearance. Those are just a few of the more than 100 people with sensitive military and government connections that law enforcement is tracking because they are linked to “outlaw motorcycle gangs.” A year before the deadly Texas shootout that killed nine people on May 17, a lengthy report by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives detailed the involvement of U.S. military personnel and government employees in outlaw motorcycle gangs, or OMGs. A copy of the...

The Bandidos Motorcycle Club released a statement Monday responding to police and other accounts of the May 17 shootout at Twin Peaks that killed nine people, injured another 20 and landed 177 people in jail. Las Vegas attorney Stephen Stubbs, who said he is representing the national club solely for the purpose of constructing and distributing the release, called the violence “senseless, completely unnecessary and wrong.” Stubbs described statements made by the Waco Police Department as “untrue,” citing the list of weapons, which now totals 488 and could still increase, as misleadingly high. Police have said the list of weapons...

The Bandidos Motorcycle Club called Monday for Waco police to share video and autopsy reports relating to a bloody melee that left nine people dead, 18 injured and 177 arrested. In a statement, Stephen Stubbs, an attorney representing the club, accuses the Waco Police Department of repeatedly misleading the press and public with false information and withholding evidence from the deadly shooting at Twin Peaks. “The release of the video and/or autopsy reports would simply clear up rampant misinformation,” Stubbs’ statement read. “If the Waco Police Department didn't want to interfere with the investigation or influence a potential jury pool,...

If you thought violent biker gangs were a relic of the Altamont era, the shootout at a Waco, Texas, restaurant on May 17 might have come as a shock. A long-simmering beef between the Bandidos and Cossacks boiled over into gunfire. When police arrived at the scene, gang members shot at them too, leaving nine bikers dead, 18 people injured, and 170 suspects in police custody. Over 100 weapons have been confiscated. The scale of this incident dwarfs a typical urban gang confrontation, says Harold Pollack, co-director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab and an expert on gangs and...

snip Shaver limited the scope of Reposa’s questions to the recusal issue, although Reposa tried to launch into an argument that the complaints against the bikers don’t actually allege the elements of a crime and are identical, creating the appearance that everyone there is guilty of the same criminal actions. “The judge obviously shut down where I was trying to go today, which is, if you read the complaint, then you see it doesn’t allege a cause of action,” Reposa said. “So I think the judge would agree you can’t hold someone on $1 million if they don’t allege a...

WACO - On a recent Sunday, a Cossacks Motorcycle Club officer nicknamed Diesel sipped a Diet Dr Pepper on the patio of Twin Peaks and broke the news to his son, who was also a member. The 63 Cossacks and their supporters at the restaurant were not just waiting to have lunch with fellow bikers from around Central Texas. They had come for a special sit down with the Bandidos, to hash out an ongoing dispute. Before their meal arrived, Diesel was shot, execution-style, with two bullets to the back of his head. Cody Ledbetter, 26, survived the May 17...