High Profile Cases Highlight Law Day Speaker's Career
by Kevin McHargue April 04, 2001
When the Justice Department asked U.S. Attorney J. Michael Bradford to defend the federal government in a $675 million wrongful death suit arising from the 1993 siege on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, he compared the experience to “jumping on a moving freight train.” As he looks back on his tenure as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas, Bradford sees the Branch Davidian trial as a high point in his career, a case that not only yielded a favorable result for the government but gave Bradford a unique opportunity to “help restore people’s confidence in their government.” Join the Dallas Bar Association and Bradford, the keynote speaker, as we celebrate Law Day April 27 at the Adolphus Hotel. (See Cut-It-Out, Page 18).
Bradford became involved in the Branch Davidian case at a critical juncture in the fall of 1999. Congress had launched an investigation of the events in Waco, and the public was increasingly skeptical about how the operation had been handled. The civil suit originally fell within the jurisdiction of Bill Blagg, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas, but Blagg decided to recuse himself after learning that some of his own prosecutors would have to testify as fact witnesses in the case. As lead attorney, Bradford acknowledged that the outcome of the Waco siege was “one of the most terrible and horrible events in our history” but maintained that the blame should be placed squarely on Branch Davidian leader David Koresh.
The five-member jury and U.S. District Judge Walter Smith agreed. After the jury issued an advisory verdict in favor of the government, Judge Smith concluded that “the entire tragedy at Mount Carmel can be laid at the feet” of Koresh.
Bradford recognizes that “there will always be a certain percentage” of the public that will continue to fault the government for the Waco tragedy but feels that “the issue has been settled for the majority of people.” “When you get the truth out, it restores people’s faith that the system works,” Bradford said.
Maintaining public confidence has been a dominant theme in Bradford’s work as U.S. Attorney, providing a “common denominator” in all of the cases that he has undertaken. The brutal murder of African-American James Byrd Jr. in Jasper was another high-profile case in which Bradford saw the need to reaffirm the public’s faith in the legal system.
“The whole world was watching that case, and I am proud of how we handled it,” Bradford said. “That crime was intended to threaten and intimidate an entire community, and it was vitally important to send the message that we would not tolerate that conduct.”
Bradford provided attorneys and investigators to support the Jasper County District Attorney’s successful prosecution of James Byrd’s killers. In recognition of their work in the Jasper case, which is seen as a model of cooperation between state and federal prosecutors, Bradford and other members of his team received the Attorney General’s Award, the highest honor that the Department of Justice can bestow. (snip)
For the Jasper case, or for his 'handling' of Waco?
Exactly which crimes were terrorizing the community which could no longer be tolerated? The county sherriff had said that the charges leveled by the feds were nonsense.
The angle I had heard long ago was that Koresh had bought hundreds of acres of land on back tax sales. That land was being grazed by cattle which were owned by a friend of Hillary(cattle future) and Koresh was demanding grazing fees or per head rental of grazing rights. Somewhere in the $20,000 range over a five year period. Instead of paying, the friend of Hillary's called in his $100,000 favor and it quickly spun out of control with all the alphabet soup agency love fest for Clinton's admiration. Then stepped in Wesley Clarke.