Posted on 02/06/2016 5:52:34 AM PST by Elderberry
An attorney representing a biker arrested in the May 17 Twin Peaks shootout is seeking to move his client's felony case from McLennan County.
Dallas attorney Clint Broden, who represents Hewitt resident Matthew Clendennen, filed a change of venue motion Friday that seeks to try the case in another county because of what he describes as "pervasive, prejudicial and inflammatory" publicity about the unique case.
The motion asks 54th State District Judge Matt Johnson to move the trial to Travis, Dallas or Harris counties.
Broden's motion cites quotes attributed in the local media to McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna, Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton and McLennan County Justice of the Peace W.H. "Pete" Peterson in an attempt to justify moving the trial.
The motion says the Tribune-Herald has published 219 news stories about the Twin Peaks incident and 71 editorials or letters to the editor. The motion says more than 50 stories appeared on KXXV-TV, 45 on KWKT and about 100 on KCEN.
"Many of the articles and television stories have adopted the prosecution narrative of calling the motorcycle clubs 'biker gangs' and presuming Mr. Clendennen's guilt by referring to those in his position as members of a 'biker gang,' " Broden's motion states.
Clendennen is a member of the Scimitars motorcycle group.
"The guilt-presuming comments by Reyna made on local television alone would be enough to justify a change of venue in this case," the motion says.
Johnson has not set a date for the change of venue hearing.
"These televised events smacked of political opportunism and allowed Reyna to show his 'gang' was 'tough on crime,' " Broden's motion claims. "Meanwhile, Swanton would use his time in the limelight to plant the seeds for his entry into the 2016 race for the office of sheriff of McLennan County."
Broden charges that Swanton "began his prejudicial narrative from the beginning."
"In his first press conference, he used the term 'gang' approximately 17 times in 19 minutes," the motion states. "In another, he used the term 'gang' approximately 17 times in 17 minutes. Indeed, Swanton would have made a communications professor proud."
The Texas Department of Public Safety's Gang Threat Assessment lists the Bandidos as a Tier 2 gang, the same classification as the Bloods, Crips and Aryan Brotherhood in the state. The Cossacks are not listed as a Tier 1 or Tier 2 gang, but are mentioned in the most recent assessment released last August as having an ongoing conflict with the Bandidos.
“You are certainly a chief example of why the trial ought to happen outside Waco.”
Waco deserves to see justice done to a bunch of gangsters that invaded their town and staged a gunfight at a family plaza on a Sunday.
Did you post this in the SBR or did a Mod move thread in here?
You’re claiming they were committed to this kind of code, but they obviously weren’t.
You can’t have your alligations both way, alligator. Eeeeeeeeeevil bikers, or not so eeeeeeeeeeeevil after all.
Justice, not lynch job, for something that involved very few but has dragnetted the whole including the vast majority who fled the point of fight.
That won’t happen in Waco.
That has to happen elsewhere; Waco has lost its collective head and does not even try to hide it.
I reposted it.
“Justice, not lynch job, for something that involved very few but has dragnetted the whole including the vast majority who fled the point of fight.”
They were ALL gang members supporting GANG activities.
You think that, like the Waco government wackos, begging the question about 20,000 times makes it any truer?
You’re quaking in your boots at those eeeeeeeevil bikers and would even pay Satan to eliminate them.
Oh yee haw.
What’s THIS about?
I think you just can’t accept that there is more than one level on which “eeeeeeeevil bikers” can relate to one another.
We saw that play out when most fled the fight. The ones who fled weren’t interested in “gang” at all but in a different relationship they call brotherhood. Some may be secular and not have any clear idea about sin. But not even brotherhood is obligated to engage in obvious wrong.
I wonder if you were lacking brotherhood somehow in your life. Those who miss something often get sour grapes about it.
I mean just because some guys wear boots with rings and their horses are made out of iron, doesn’t make what they do “eeeeeeeeeeeeeevil.”
You sound like a case of sour grapes, and you don’t even need to be. Why spoil something you do not understand, let alone perpetrate an injustice, just because you weren’t able to relate to it? You might stand to learn more about these “eeeeeeeeeeeeevil bikers.”
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