Posted on 07/29/2015 4:13:06 AM PDT by don-o
A retired state district judge from Travis County has been asked to preside over the examining trials of 20 bikers arrested in the May 17 Twin Peaks shootout after reports that a local judge questioned whether she could be impartial and declined to hear the cases.
Judge Billy Ray Stubblefield, administrative judge of the 26-county 3rd Judicial Region, said Friday evening that he is waiting to hear back from the judge to see if he will agree to hear the examining trials.
The judicial appointment becomes necessary after senior Judge Joe Carroll, of Bell County, recused McLennan County Justice of the Peace W.H. “Pete” Peterson last week from presiding over the examining trial of Hewitt biker Matthew Clendennen.
Stubblefield said it would have been “normal procedure” for Dianne Hensley, Peterson’s fellow Precinct 1 justice of the peace, to be appointed to hear the cases in Peterson’s place.
But Dallas attorney Clint Broden represented to Judge Carroll last week that Hensley told Waco attorney Robert Callahan that she would recuse her office because she was not sure if she could be impartial.
Hensley said this week that she does not recall saying she could not be impartial and said if Stubblefield decides to appoint her to preside over the examining trials, she would “have to do some research,” but would hear them.
Neither Hensley nor Peterson ever has conducted an examining trial, which normally is used by defense attorneys to get an early glimpse of prosecution evidence and to seek a determination that there was not probable cause to arrest their clients.
Hensley said she was in the middle of hearing some debt claim cases last week when Callahan came in and asked if she was going to be in town Aug. 10 if Clendennen’s case was transferred to her court.
“I told him I worked very closely with Judge Peterson and I hear all the gossip going around in the courthouse, so I don’t think I would be their first choice to hear the case,” Hensley said. “I would be afraid that there would be a perception that I would not be fair because I do work closely with Judge Peterson. But if Judge Stubblefield assigns it to me, I will hear it.”
Callahan said Tuesday he remembers Hensley telling him she would recuse herself if she got the appointment.
“She was very professional,” Callahan said. “But the only words I specifically remember she said was that she would recuse herself. She did have some sort of qualification or clarification, but I don’t remember what it was. It was something to the effect that she could not be impartial.”
No matter what Hensley told Callahan, it is clear that Broden told Carroll that Hensley said she would recuse herself because she thinks she could not be impartial. But Carroll has no authority to appoint Hensley or anyone else. That authority belongs to Stubblefield.
Stubblefield, of Georgetown, said his order will appoint the judge to preside over the Clendennen examining trial, but also gives him the authority to hear 17 other cases scheduled in Peterson’s court and those set in the courts of Justice of the Peace David Pareya and Waco Municipal Judge Chris Taylor.
Stubblefield said he did not seek a judge outside of McLennan County because of the widespread criticism of the way Waco police and McLennan County officials have handled the chaotic, complex case in which nine people were killed and 177 bikers were jailed on identical engaging in organized criminal activity charges under $1 million bonds.
‘Trying to be efficient’
“Not really,” the judge said. “I haven’t heard any negative comments or criticisms. It was just a matter of trying to be efficient with the use of the court’s time. The closer I got looking into it, the more I realized that this was a justice of the peace acting as a magistrate rather than as a justice of the peace. So I thought it would be most appropriate to handle it like we would any other recusal.”
Broden complained that Peterson set unreasonably high bonds and said he was doing so to “send a message” about the gravity of the incident. He also complained that Peterson signed off on what Broden and others have called “cookie-cutter, fill-in-the-blank warrants” for the bikers’ arrests.
Waco attorney David Deaconson was hired by the county to represent Peterson and to assist with Twin Peaks-related motions, subpoenas and other legal matters. He also is serving as liaison between biker defense attorneys, the courts and Stubblefield.
He suggested to Stubblefield that an out-of-town judge might quell more criticism about what the bikers and their supporters are calling the unfair McLennan County justice system.
“If the administrative judge has graciously offered to give us assistance as far as a judge on all of this, I just think if we bring in one who can devote his time, we can get the process on the examining trial side done much more efficiently and there isn’t any concern, be it from the media, or the public or whomever, that the county is totally trying to scheme against these people,” Deaconson said.
Deaconson, a former McLennan County prosecutor, said there have been maybe three or four examining trials conducted in McLennan County in the past 30 years. He added that with the Michael Morton Act, which requires prosecutors to provide defendants and their attorneys with all evidence, including favorable evidence, against them, examining trials are not needed unless defendants are in jail and seeking another way out.
Beat me to it by mere minutes!
Clown court is in session. Rights be damned.
Does this seem odd? Why would a defense attorney agree to let a county employee "carry his water" to the courts?
Steady paycheck.
Retired judges should stay retired.
I am beginning to wonder who the Waco cops are working for. A rival biker gang?
I wonder how long the Waco “authorities” can make this thing stretch out? This thing is whipping along at glacial speed...and none of the little bits of new information that comes out make the “authorities” look any better...it all just adds more information that makes the Waco situation appear to be a mass miscarriage of justice.
I would wager that Abel Renya prays every day that Big Media continues to ignore this travesty.
“...The closer I got looking into it, the more I realized that this was a justice of the peace acting as a magistrate rather than as a justice of the peace. ...Peterson set unreasonably high bonds and said he was doing so to “send a message” about the gravity of the incident. He also complained that Peterson signed off on what Broden and others have called “cookie-cutter, fill-in-the-blank warrants” for the bikers’ arrests.
Waco attorney David Deaconson was hired by the county to represent Peterson...
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Jeez, so the “justice of the peace” who Waco authorities used (”acting as a magistrate”) to start the whole persecution going has now been assigned Waco government funded defense counsel?
So begins the lawyering up process for those involved in this criminal enterprise carried out by Obama’s DOJ operatives (e.g., BATF) and their puppets in local Waco government.
Do you think now we will get a coroner’s report?
Waco's courthouse crowd reminds me of Durham's during the Duke lacrosse case.
They can stretch it out a lot longer than one might think.
Hensley and Callahan (Broden's gopher) disagree whether Hensley said she would recuse. My impression is that Hensley, working with Stubblefield, is attempting to rehabilitate the impression that she would not be impartial. Stubblefield could appoint Hensley. Why doesn't he? She's right there in the same office, etc. No need to pull some good ol' boy out of retirement.
The judges don't know how to hear examining trials, at least not fresh in their work experience. What is so hard about finding probable cause?
I wonder what the "17 other cases scheduled in Peterson's court and those set in the courts of Justice of the Peace David Pareya and Waco Municipal Judge Chris Taylor" are
Stubblefield hasn't heard any negative criticism of the way the Waco PD and courts have handled the incident. Is that credible?
To the contention that "examining trials are not needed unless defendants are in jail and seeking another way out," note that an examining trial is moot upon indictment, because an indictment is an incontestable finding of probable cause. Examining trials are useful when defendant wants a peek at the state's evidence (accused tend to avoid this, because they have to expose their defense), and when the accused is in fact innocent of the accusation and the state doesn't have probable cause.
A couple years, or even longer, easy.
The innocent ones automatically get out from the cloud of bail around January, although the state has 3 years to bring charges.
We'll get a sense of how the state intends to play its hand, when the results of examining trial are published. I think the judge will say there is probable cause. That creates a stronger defense against civil rights suits. If the state finds "no probable cause," then the federal civil rights claims become a slam dunk. The state will not admit it arrested without probable cause, and the state courts will not so find. That issue will be litigated separately in federal courts, maybe appealed in state courts - but the state courts all have the same interest in seeing probable cause where none exists.
Those are never going to come out. The only way they become a legal issue is in criminal trials against non-government shooters, and those trials will only reveal the dead who were killed by non-government shooters.
The government can pretend that all the dead were shot by bikers, and claim that there are no trials, because it would be too hard to prove who shot who - if there is no trial, the evidence stays buried forever.
You don't REALLY believe they would be that audacious, do you?
Yes, I do. The stakes are high. The state can wait for other crimes by any bikers who perpetrated a crime at Twin Peaks. The difficulty is explaining to the public why there are no trials relating to the Twin Peaks action.
bookmark
“The government can pretend that all the dead were shot by bikers”
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