Posted on 07/01/2015 6:45:10 AM PDT by don-o
Dallas attorney Clint Broden has been loudly skeptical of the repeated and clumsy lies official Waco has been telling the public since nine men were murdered outside the Twin Peaks restaurant on May 17. Broden has been sending out daily press releases and holding news conferences on the case for two weeks. Today State District Judge Matt Johnson, at the instigation of District Attorney Abel Reyna, forbid Broden from discussing the Twin Peaks Massacre publically.
Johnson issued the order at a subpoena hearing. Broden had subpoenaed video shot by the Twin Peaks restaurant on May 17 in order to better defend his client, a Scimitar Motorcycle Club member named Matt Clendennen. Johnson told Broden he could have the video but he could only show it to Clendennen and any experts he night hire.
The gag order is not a surprise. Reyna has been threatening defense attorneys with it for at least a fortnight. When contacted by telephone, a representative of Broden’s Dallas law firm, Broden, Mickelsen, Helms & Snipes, tersely explained that the gag order also forbids anyone at the firm from discussing the gag order or the process under which the gag order may be appealed.
Protecting Whom
Nevertheless, it is a matter of public record that Broden intends to appeal the gag order and hopes to release the video. Numerous officials in Waco have already discussed the video publically and have, apparently, lied about its contents. The gag order seems intended to protect public and police officials from being confronted with their own lies. Johnson said he was forbidding discussion of the evidence because he was concerned about contaminating the jury pool. The standard reason for issuing gag, or “protective,” orders is to protect a person’s right to a fair trial. Considering the extent to which Waco officials, particularly Waco police propagandist W. Patrick Swanton, have already prejudiced most of the world against the defendants in this case, Johnson’s argument seems absurd.
There is no certainty that the gag order will eventually be overturned but it seems likely that it will be.
Gag orders oppose the people’s right to know and in numerous cases they are opposed by large and rich news gathering organizations like The Associated Press but in this case, the AP has already seen the video Broden subpoenaed this morning and publically described it. Since a case titled Nebraska Press Ass’n v. Stuart, courts have been forbidden from restraining what the press may say or to whom it may talk. But only the lawyers in Waco are being restrained. Restrictions on lawyer speech are usually justified by the claim that attorneys are officers of the court and thus are more subject to court-imposed limits to preserve the “fairness” of a trial.
A Tale Of Two Reynas
Next the Twin Peaks video will be “discovered” to every other lawyer in the case and all of those lawyers will be subject to the same gag order the judge issued this morning. When that happens, coverage of the Twin Peaks Massacre will, for all practical purposes, cease.
The constitutionality of gag orders is unresolved and subject to considerable debate. Constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky has argued that defense lawyers should be no more subject to gag orders than the press is. In court this morning, Broden offered Judge Johnson a cogent and ironic argument against the gag order imposed on him.
Broden cited a March 2007 by Texas 10th Court of Appeals that said a similar gag order issued by state district Judge Reva Towslee-Corbett was overly broad and was “a clear abuse of discretion.” The author of that decision was Judge Felipe Reyna. Reyna found that Towslee-Corbett’s gag order was a prior restraint of free speech that is “presumptively unconstitutional,” without specific evidence that the gag was necessary to prevent “imminent and irreparable” harm to the outcome of the trial and without proof that the gag order was the “least restrictive means” to prevent that harm. Judge Reyna is the father of the McLennan County District Attorney who requested and got this morning’s order against Broden.
Very slick strategy - Neuter the First Amendment by starvation.
“Very slick strategy - Neuter the First Amendment by starvation. “
That’s one possible view and it may be correct. Another view is the judge is attempting to prevent the case from being tried on TV where rules of evidence don’t apply and reputations and careers of presumably innocent and worthy public servants are ruined. (Admittedly, it’s hard to view many of the current public servants as anything but selfish, partisan hacks out for their own aggrandizement. But we should at least give them a chance under rule of law and evidence to state their case.)
naaa.....
Clint just needs to turn his findings over to a non-attorney third party.
Verbally direct 3rd party which rocks to turn over.
Everyone walked into this with their eyes wide open. Twin Peaks was asked not to have this, the patrons who knew it was trouble, and the cops knew they would have to clean up the mess.
BTW, does anyone know how many of the 170 are still in jail?
IIRC, the bond amount was significantly reduced for who were jailed.
” But we should at least give them a chance under rule of law and evidence to state their case.)”
Especially considering they have denied due process to those they arrested. Right?
Cops didn’t clean up anything. They did make a bigger mess.
Broden mentioned in his pleading yesterday that Waco PD had recently released video of an armed robbery 24 hours after it occurred.
My local LE routinely publicize security camera pico of suspects alleged to being caught in the act.
It is so common that suspicions must arise when such is withheld.
That contention is disputed, not that the contention has much relevance to the conduct of the players.
TP flat out denies that they were asked any such thing. There is no records - no restraining order, no letter...nothing but the words of Sgt Swanton.
And Yahoo News reported that cops and been there only a couple of times in the previous six months.
Due process is the legal requirement that the state must respect all legal rights that are owed to a person. Due process balances the power of law of the land and protects the individual person from it.
I suspect that we can’t take any of the partisan accounts presented so far (and all of them are partisan) to conclude anything has actually been denied. The news that we get translates events that may have taken hours or days and involved many people and competing concerns and parses them down to a teaser of ten to twenty words. That teaser is necessarily tainted by the need to seem explosive and to grab attention from the competition. This is why we have a deliberative and adversarial justice system. I’m prepared to wait for that system to run its course.
As of Monday midnight, 11 still locked up
“Broden mentioned in his pleading yesterday that Waco PD had recently released video of an armed robbery 24 hours after it occurred.”
An armed robbery is a very simple event. Video shot from one or two angles of a complicated wide-ranging scene would depict little. It must be set into context with testimony from the many participants. Comparing video from an armed robbery to a shooting that occurred over a longer time frame and involved over 100 participants is like comparing a one panel cartoon to a novel by Tolstoy.
I have to say, the further down this rabbit hole we get, the curiouser and curiouser it gets.
A google search leads to this article which gives a list of all released and bond amount:
Updated: List of Twin Peaks bikers jailed, released
As of midnight Monday, 166 of the 177 bikers arrested after May 17 shootout at
Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco had been released.
Thank you for the imprisoned numbers update!
I would like to hear what you think about this.
Judge Sullivan: Some Arrests at 2004 RNC Lacked Probable Cause
The matter of 177 identical probable cause affidavits seem outrageous on its face. In the matter I linked, the judges affirms the requirement of individualized probable cause for crimes alleged to have been committed by each individual arrested.
Interesting that those hearings were scheduled like “first one on August 6th” or something like that.
Modified, limited hangout= admission of guilt. The question is what guilt? It must be pretty bad.
“I would like to hear what you think about this.”
Thank you. I’ll get to it later today or tonight.
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