Posted on 07/06/2015 11:08:21 AM PDT by don-o
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 and is threatening the non-party with orders of contempt and arrest. Such conduct is improper and must be stopped.”
Justice of the Peace W.H. “Pete” Peterson has scheduled an examining trial in Clendennen’s case for Aug. 10. Those seeking examining trials hope to prove there is insufficient evidence to indict them.
Peterson has not set other hearings in the case, including one to consider the motion to quash the subpoena.
Griffin alleges in the motion to quash that the subpoena will unduly burden Don Carlos’ officials, whom he said would have to review hundreds of hours of surveillance footage from 16 different positions in order to comply.
Also, he alleges, the manager of the Waco Don Carlos is no longer in possession of the hard drives containing the surveillance because Waco police officials took them as part of their ongoing investigation.
The motion suggests Broden ask prosecutors to turn over the video.
“Finally, this surveillance footage is evidence in an ongoing criminal investigation and in an unrelated civil proceeding to which a gag order has been placed,” the motion to quash says. “To require a non-party to disseminate this information would be unfair and prejudicial and potentially be in conflict with the gag order.”
If the subpoena is not quashed, Don Carlos officials ask the video to be placed under a protective order, barring its public release.
In a response to the motion to quash, Broden called Don Carlos’ arguments “gobbledygook.”
He notes that 54th State District Judge Matt Johnson last week ordered Twin Peaks to comply with an almost identical subpoena on a Twin Peaks franchisee. The judge placed the video under a protective order, preventing Broden from releasing it publicly.
“Twin Peaks has offered transparency to the citizens of McLennan County while, at the same time, recognizing the importance of due process rights of those charged with criminal offenses by agreeing to produce its surveillance videos pursuant to a subpoena,” Broden’s response says.
“On the other hand, Don Carlos seeks to keep McLennan County citizens in the dark and to deny citizens an opportunity to fully prepare their defense. Thus, it should hardly surprise Don Carlos that McLennan County citizens might choose not to patronize a restaurant that acts with such disdain toward public transparency and basic constitutional rights.”
Don Carlos is suing Twin Peaks in Dallas for loss of business as a result of the May 17 shootout.
The legal process will run it’s course. There are people running their mouths on both sides.>>
I couldn’t agree more. It is turning into psych case ward around here with the extension of energy being fanatically invested in the pre-trial speculation, “beliefs” and assumptions, otherwise known as BS. What a waste of time and minds.
PS: My own reference to “conspiracy” wasn’t directed at the accused, but at the mob mentality busy defending mob mentality. :)
Remember, the truth is whatever finny says it is! *footstomp*
Those aren't mutually exclusive categories. They've been charged with "gang conspiracy" to commit a crime, and the crtime they are alleged to have conspired to commit is capital murder.
More to the point, if another Waco happened again tomorrow somewhere else in America and 150 innocent Americans' lives were destroyed by Civil Servants legally allowed to administer punishment first and apply due process MUCH later, the same "legal process" would shield and protect abusive Civil Servants in their use of armed FORCE against the civilians/citizens they ostensibly "serve," but over whom they effectively rule with an IRON FIST.
Waco establishes fully that the courts now FAIL to protect in any meaningful way, citizens/civilians from Civil Servants who abuse their power on a mass scale.
THAT is the most dangerous precedent being set by Waco. Rita needs to squeeze her eyes shut to a truth she is not capable of handling, and so must call observers of history repeating itself, "conspiracy theorists" in order to salve her own heart -- that 's what I think. I am very, very disappointed and disillusioned with Rita OK as well as many other FReepers who had me fooled into thinking all these years that the were thoughtful patriots, but who are proving to be naïve dupes of tyranny along the lines of Good Germans in the 1930s.
At least we have found out who karl rove is on FR!
Then why do you join in?
I post these threads because the story has vanished from the news cycle. What has happened in the aftermath of 5/17 is far from business as usual. Used to be FR prided itself on digging into things like this.
Amen
I agree with you, assuming the legal process is "working like it is supposed to" is naive. This is Zimmerman times 150 or more.
It happens every day on a one-at-a-time basis. The system is not quite as "innocent" and "just" and the Pollyannas of the world believe.
Says who?
” the crtime they are alleged to have conspired to commit is capital murder...”
I’m not sure about that, at least that wasn’t clear from the indictments that I read. The case seemed to be more about conspiring to engage in violence (up to and including murder) in furtherance of a turf dispute.
What are these indictments that you read? Got a link?
Comparing it to cases involving one or two people and he-said she-said cop malfeasance, is wrong headed.
This was CLEAR mass abuse of police power, wherein 117 people without any criminal histories at all, and another 60 with criminal records ranging from misdemeanor arrests many years old to a small handful individuals with convictions on serious violent charges -- ALL of those people were immediately and harshly punished without due process, their financial, professional, and personal lives SEVERELY harmed and damaged permanently with a now-existent "criminal record" and felony charges of murder and "gang" conspiracy to commit it.
That is not opinion, it is not speculation, IT IS A FACT ALREADY IN EVIDENCE.
You can afford to wait for the Courts to "sort it all out." This time. But if you are at all active in any clubs, then next time or the time after that, you may be the one languishing in jail while your reputation and income-earning ability is "legally" destroyed, while "sensible, level-headed" people tell you to be "open minded" in case the cops were wrong and arrested you wrongly.
WHY? Because Waco has already established that Civil Servants can get away with mass abuse of power SCOT FREE, and only risk paying any consequences YEARS down the road. Those Civil Servants apparently have very different rights that thee and me, Sherman, and it is VERY dangerous to thee and me.
Wake up.
“Yep. But by the time the legal process runs its course, it will be TOO LATE for the 117 to 150 people whose lives were wrongly, criminally harmed by abusive Civil Servants.”
Well, I guess we just can’t arrest anyone, because some innocent people might have their “lives harmed” by being arrested before a trial can prove their innocence. Sure, all the guilty people will go free, but we can’t have police and prosecutors just “harming lives” in pursuit of this foolish notion of “due process”.
There has to be. Jennifer Love Hewitt is from Waco.
Sorry, my mistake, I meant the vehicle forfeiture affidavits.
Strawman.
Thanks! I’m heartened. Waco is very frightening because it IS “Zimmerman times 150 or more,” it is PLAIN and OBVIOUS that it is so, yet there are so many frightened, timid, naïve people here who not only close their eyes to it, but attack those of us with the courage to accept a hard truth, a truth hard as a rock: American law enforcement has officially turned toward military-style tyranny.
OK.
About the underlying charges, it would be a job to dig it up - one could try, I guess - but, I seem to recall when Swanton was giving his briefs, he did mention “capital murder.”
“Then why do you join in?” ———
Frankly, you can attest that I rarely do, “join in”, right?
But to answer your question, it’s like checking in on a car wreck in motion. I admit I believe these threads to be a psych opera on steroids. When I do check in, it’s impossible to keep my big mouth shut, which tells you how rarely you hear from me.
I’m intrigued that we can not dare wait for trial when we can have such all this fun sounding fanatical.
PS: You, don-o, do rather conduct yourself with some grace and class and it’s not entirely unnoticed. :)
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