Waco – Which lever do you pull, which button to push when it comes to ridding a jurisdiction of a DA bent on criminally negligent practice?
Barry Johnson, a hometown barrister Texas “Monthly” labeled one of the state’s “super lawyers,” says he’s willing to answer the question, but it will take time, thought, intensive study.
After all, the situation is very rare.
But he’s got news for the motorcycle enthusiasts targeted by the Twin Peaks prosecutors and their boss, elected DA Abel Reyna.
“If elected, job one will be to assemble a staff of experts on probable cause, indictments, discovery – every aspect of criminal litigation. We will work to evaluate every single charge.
“The goal will be to eliminate the cases with no valid basis in fact.”
The way he says it, it makes one believe he means it.
The affidavits presented to the Grand Jurors who indicted Twin Peaks defendants lack the elements of probable cause and the elements of the offense.
That is something that can be straightened out.
“Reyna has too much of a vested interest,” he declared.
Furthermore, a Court Of Inquiry scheduled for a future date to determine if Manuel Chavez engaged in perjury when he signed the affidavits and if Abel Reyna committed aggravated perjury “is probably the best way” to handle it. When Reyna lied on the witness stand about the admonishment he claimed he gave Chavez to familiarize himself thoroughly with all the elements of the alleged offenses he committed a felony crime; Chavez committed a misdemeanor when he signed an oath stating he has personal knowledge of the offenses, something he later recanted.
When recalled to the witness stand, Chavez later denied any such conversation took place.
For starters, that’s his best thinking on how the mechanisms of the law will work to remove Reyna from the legal scene as anything other than a defendant.
You left out the part where he said he would reopen the investigation of the charges Reyna dismissed!