Posted on 07/22/2015 1:48:55 PM PDT by don-o
A recusal hearing to address a complaint against McLennan County Justice of the Peace W.H. “Pete” Peterson related to the May 17 biker shooting at Twin Peaks will take place at 10 a.m. Thursday and be presided over by a Bell County judge, legal documents show.
The complaint, filed with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct by Dallas attorney Clinton Broden, alleges Peterson violated several judicial ethical canons when he set the initial $1 million bonds for the 177 jailed bikers.
Broden has said his complaint is based on comments Peterson made to the Tribune-Herald after the shooting.
“I think it is important to send a message,” Peterson said at the time. “We had nine people killed in our community. These people just came in, and most of them were from out of town. Very few of them were from in town.”
In Broden’s complaint, filed June 2, he alleges Peterson’s “public comments would cause persons to believe that they could not get a fair examining trial before Peterson.”
In the document, he says it is “completely unlawful” to set bonds to “send a message” and that Peterson’s quotes “indicate that he sets bonds out of bias against people who visit Waco.”
The complaint alleges Peterson set the bonds for the bikers without any individual consideration for the facts of the individual cases and that Peterson set them in group hearings without considering the rules for establishing bonds under the Code of Criminal Procedure.
The complaint also charges that Peterson, a retired state trooper, “inappropriately refused to set probable cause hearings” in some biker cases until Aug. 6, only after consulting with the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office.
“It is our belief that law enforcement chose Peterson to set the bonds in this case because of his lack of legal training and his willingness to ignore the requirements that each case be given individual consideration,” Broden said.
Broden represents Matthew Clendennen, of Hewitt, who was arrested on a charge of engaging in organized criminal activity. Clendennen has said he was sitting on the Twin Peaks patio when the violence broke out. He said he was not involved in the melee but is associated with the Scimitars motorcycle club.
Almost all of the $1 million bonds have since been reduced after hearings and negotiations between the bikers’ attorneys and prosecutors. Only three remained in jail Wednesday afternoon.
Joe Carroll, Senior Judge of the 27th Judicial District Court will preside over Thursday’s hearing. A gag order has been placed over all parties involved in Clendennen’s case and the complaint against Peterson.
In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
George Orwell
That gives a flavor of the sort of output of the Commission. Judges may appeal adverse decisions to court, and some do. In re Davis is an example. In re: Terry A. Canales is a Commission review, of a decision to remove a judge from office and bar him from being a judge in Texas.
I'd just add, that in nearly every case where bond is reduced, it is a sign of error on the part of the judge who set bail. That in itself should be remarkable, because appeals courts do not interfere with matters of judgment, only with matters of law. By definition, each reduction by a court of appeals is correction of an unlawful setting of bail.
Briley v. Texas is an example of a trial court abusing its discretion, and using bail as an instrument of oppression.
Fascinating. Thanks for finding these cases.
What else could it be called, when it was so instantly established that only one in three of those arrested even had prior criminal records, yet that bail was carried through anyway?
Their lives were oppressed, and still are being oppressed. Most of them have to wear those stupid ankle bracelets, at great dollar cost and probably great mental humiliation.
It's pretty cut and dried, even now. I'm outraged at this blatant abuse of power, and I'm outraged that so many refuse to acknowledge that it is even now a grievous and worrisome abuse of power.
-- Most of them have to wear those stupid ankle bracelets, at great dollar cost and probably great mental humiliation. --
That's not an "excessive bail" issue, that's an "absence of probable cause" issue.
-- I'm outraged at this blatant abuse of power ... --
Petersen and Reyna have civil rights too, as well as due process. They will likely be called to justify their actions.
As they are Civil Servants, their rights are different than the 117 non-criminal-record arrestees. Petersen and Reyna won't be accountable for their crimes until their crimes have played out on the victims.
When any of us are suspected of breaking the law, we're instantly called on it by civil servants, as the 117 "dangerous bikers" with zero arrest records were when they were deprived of their right to work for two weeks to a month or more, and had to pay thousands to return to their rightful lives.
But the criminal civil servants who deprived them of that right, maybe might just answer for it in a few years. Unlike our own rights would allow were we to "break the law" to prevent them from doing it again. It's getting just spooky, sorry, but that's the ultimate destination, IMO, as long as obvious right vs obvious wrong is ignored for "due process" giving civil servants different rights than the people they serve.
Thanks for your great posts that help clarify things. Lawyer-ese is different than normal speak.
“As they are Civil Servants, their rights are different than the 117 non-criminal-record arrestees.”
Criminal: A person that has committed a crime.
There is no evidence that the ‘117’ have never committed a crime.
Is it pretty much a sure thing that Peterson will preside at the Examining Trial? Is Broden without any recourse?
Retired State District Judge Joe Carroll granted the motion for recusal filed by Clendennen's attorney, F. Clinton Broden.Judge Removes Local JP From Twin Peaks Case - kwtx.com - Paul J. Gately - July 23, 2015That effectively removes Peterson from hearing any further issues in Clendennen's case, including an examining trial on probable cause for Clendennen's arrest on May 17, the day nine bikers were killed and 20 others injured in a gang gunfight at the restaurant.
Carroll will send his ruling to the regional administrative judge, Judge Billy Ray Stubblefield, in Georgetown, who will decide who should preside over Clendennen's examining hearing next month.
Joe Carroll, Senior Judge of the 27th Judicial District Courtvs.
The complaint, filed with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct
Both lines appear in a Waco Trib article, and one or the other controls the nature of the hearing and the possible outcomes. So, my remarks on this thread are in light of a hearing before the Commission, which is not the same as a hearing before the 27th Judicial District Court. Hearings in court are public, court decisions CAN result in recusal.
Just explaining why most of my remarks in this thread are irrelevant to the hearing that took place this morning.
The Hussein Head trolls are doubling down here today.
Let’s not feed them.
“You asked for my to outline where I get the stench of killing pits from your posts. That one had it. You seem not to be aware of the concept of slippery slopes, nor care. “
I see you did not address my post. The slippery slope is departure from the truth which you embarked on in the post I addressed.
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