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.
They just looked right at home, business as usual on an average midday afternoon.
Saul Alinsky tactics don’t work on me.
As Bob Dylan said, “I won’t let go and I can’t let go...”
Despite the paucity of facts, we do have enough from the police ALONE to raise serious questions.
In the immediate aftermath, Swanton said that they basically saw it coming. Yet, several days later, Stroman informs that his men were SITTING IN THEIR VEHICLES.
Later still, we get an affidavit (constructed from videos per internal references) that there were signs of impending conflict on the site, before the first shot was fired and while the Waco PD was SITTING IN THEIR VEHICLES. Stroman stated that his men got out of their vehicles AFTER the first shot.
The Waco PD has scrubbed their previous updates from their facebook and now have a judge putting a gag order on the attorneys.
These factors point to, at the very least, a poorly prepared and executed operation. I believe that they all know that and are hoping it will somehow just all blow over.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times and more, I don’t even know what to say.
Have you ever been to a Twin Peaks? There are several around the DFW Metro. I just drove through the parking lot and saw a lot of bikes with a couple of guards monitoring the parking lot. Not your average security guards but biker guards.
In that brief moment it was very clear that TP is a big biker hangout all day every day.
They all have a special parking area for bikes, but I can guarantee you that, at least in Houston, the vast majority of their customers, are businessmen, workers, and families.
Don’t believe the ‘families’? Check out the stack of highchairs off to the side. And the crayons and coloring pages they have for kids.
Can’t speak for Houston, Haven’t been there in a long time.
I don’t generally take my wife and kids to Hooters either. Get two beers and two breasts (chicken that is) to go. Now my sons are older that might not be a bad idea.
That’s just me.
To wit: 177 motorcycle enthusiasts legally assembled at the site of a political meeting and continued their biker war with a gunfight at a family plaza on a Sunday afternoon.
Review on foursquare:
If you want to wait forever to be served, pay for not so great food and be flirted with by an escort, then this is your type of “restaurant”
People with experience in the real world with real bikers suspect the police are lying.
“People with experience in the real world with real bikers suspect the police are lying. “
Real bikers in the real world ... also personally at the Waco shooting:
Bikers on the scene commend the police for their actions.
Peter Graves, Bandidos officer and TCOC president at the Waco shooting, says they respect the police for doing their job.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_sCRg69TQE
(Big John Snyder, Vice president of the Boozefighters at the Waco shooting) “The police were professional, considering the situation they were in. They were professional and doing their job,” he said.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-waco-biker-20150519-story.html
We have also heard from a biker family member that the police probably saved lives at Waco.
Judge Reyna has an inherent conflict of interest.
“Had it been you at one of the tables in Twin Peaks that day,”
I hope Gen.B has the same common sense that I have and when seeing all the biker gangs in the parking lot, would have never gone in.
Perhaps some are glad the bunch was locked up long enough to let the dust settle.
““We support them. That’s what this community is; it’s Texas. It’s a Bandido state,” she said. And Blackett says in light of what happened Sunday, she knows it could be risky. “You know, the environment may change now and, I’m not gonna lie, we’ll just have to be on alert.”
She said that means never riding alone and traveling in groups, until the dust settles.”
http://kxan.com/2015/05/18/local-motorcycle-club-members-barely-missed-waco-shooting/
If the prosecution desires to now have no one say anything about it (other than themselves), then they should offer up retractions for what has been already been said to the public by law enforcement officials which is prejudicial against defendants.
Law enforcement has already poisoned that well in statements made to news reporters which included alleged details of what persons belonging to particular MC's did at that time, and that place.
They want to have the power to accuse, while tightly controlling all information? It's a little bit late. They've already let out a summation of what one portion of video evidence may show to include such gems as Cossacks allegedly "checking their weapons" on the outdoor patio, as if they were laying in wait, hoping to be in a gunfight.
That would prejudice portions of the public (and potential jury pool) against all Cossack and Scimitar defendants rather indiscriminately, when it's otherwise obvious enough to those who have looked into the matter beyond the multitude of statements released by Waco PD that the majority of those arrested most likely did not go there for primary intent & reason of engaging in a shooting war with rival MC's.
If one piece of anecdotal info can be believed, it's like Cossacks were invited to what would include a sort of sidebar to the general meeting, which would be a parlay of sorts over an issue generally between Bandidos and Cossacks which likely had played it's part in the recent violence (between Bandidos and Cossacks, and even murder of one Cossack, in Ft. Worth).
The CoC meetings could also be informally open to most any "biker" to attend, if another item of anecdotal info possibly be believed.
The more information comes to bear upon what happened, the less the LE narrative and indiscriminate attribution of motives which LE liberally applied to each and every defendant looks to be accurate. It's like the PD made a generally poor assessment from the get-go, but act like they still seek to have the accusations they've made (as seen in the initial charges filed against Clendennen) stick in the public eye as indisputable truth.
Secret trials -- we already almost have those. Most trials no one pays much attention to. And then from outside of courtrooms, court proceedings generally open to the public can sometimes at least, have County sheriff officers block entry through use of intimidation. I've had that happen to me when I was simply hoping to drop in to a lower court, and watch how things went in regard to arraignment proceedings of multiple persons and types of things. Traffic tickets, drunk driving, then inmates brought from the County jail to appear before a judge, etc, that type of thing. I wanted to watch judges in action, who also would appear on election ballots.
Why a deputy blocked my access he wouldn't say, other than if I was not one of the persons on the long list of those who were required to appear for a variety of reasons, then I could not enter the courtroom. And this was not anything approaching a "closed" trial at all, but was merely preliminary sort of proceedings for many different people, most all of them not associated to one another in the least.
Judges and LE both are scared nowadays, I guess. It goes beyond judges being merely irritated by persons entering the courtroom while things are occurring, into fear someone will walk in a blow them away.
I would suggest the LEO and judges both stop being so often (far too often) such unmitigated asses -- and then maybe, just maybe, people would be more supportive of them, rather than in today's society citizens growing increasingly disgusted with them, and their lying-azz ways.
In Spain, there's a fine old saying: Vivir con miedo is como vivir a medias.
Translation: To live in fear is to half-live.
People with "common sense" such as yours, who stupidly fear law-abiding patriotic American bikers because of a tiny minority of criminals made to look dramatically large and colorful via TV, the History Channel, '50s legend, pop culture, and self-interested law enforcement "experts," are living sheltered half-lives because they live in fear.
Those of us who live fully and bravely put fear aside, have long discovered that what you fearfully believe, is in reality a myth.
You live only halfway. You are blind to vast sources of pure American-spirited adventure and goodness because you have allowed contrived fears to blind you.
Bikers’ lawyer says bikers serve and clean up after Bandidos.
The men Klein represents are all part of The Desgraciados motorcycle club, Klein said, explaining the name means “the disgraced” in Spanish. The Desgraciados are a North Texas motorcycle club based in Dallas and consider themselves supporters of the Bandidos, he said. The Bandidos and the Cossacks biker clubs were the two clubs singled out as initiating the shooting in police reports.
“When the Bandidos come to town, they (The Desgraciados) serve the drinks and clean up,” Klein said, adding that this association increased the bond amount required for his clients.
Bucy’s bond was higher because he and others in the Ellis County Motorcycle Club, wear Cossacks jackets and patches, Bennett said.
“Because he is affiliated with the Cossacks, they (the district attorney’s staff) absolutely refused to go any lower,” he said. “They have identified the Cossacks as one of the primary groups. Overall, he (Bucy) felt pretty good about getting down to that level.”
“You live only halfway. You are blind to vast sources of pure American-spirited adventure and goodness because you have allowed contrived fears to blind you. “
Really dear,
I got my first motorcycle in 1962. In 1974 I made a cross-country trip on my bike. I probably have more hours on a dirt bike than you do on saloon stool.
We weren’t tied down with a bunch of ‘parade bikers’ but rode in two’s or threes and teased Porche’s at triple digit speeds on mountain roads ... but that was in my younger days.
Now I am retired and more laid back. Just got back from my scuba trip.
“People with “common sense” such as yours, who stupidly fear law-abiding patriotic American bikers because of a tiny minority of criminals made to look dramatically large and colorful via TV, the History Channel, ‘50s legend, pop culture, and self-interested law enforcement “experts,” are living sheltered half-lives because they live in fear. “
Can’t wait to see this Waco episode on the History channel!
“You live only halfway”
You got me there! I guess one has never lived until one has been in the middle of a biker gang shoot-out.
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