Posted on 07/06/2015 11:08:21 AM PDT by don-o
Attorneys for Don Carlos Mexican Restaurant in Waco are seeking to block a subpoena that would require restaurant officials to turn over security camera videos from the May 17 shootout in advance of a biker’s examining trial.
Attorney Clint Broden, who represents Hewitt biker Matthew Clendennen, subpoenaed the video from Don Carlos, whose business is adjacent to the former Twin Peaks restaurant, where nine bikers were killed and 20 others were wounded.
Bret Griffin, a Houston attorney who represents Don Carlos, said in a motion to quash the subpoena that Broden is on a “fishing expedition for non-party’s surveillance footage and is threatening the non-party with orders of contempt and arrest. Such conduct is improper and must be stopped.”
Justice of the Peace W.H. “Pete” Peterson has scheduled an examining trial in Clendennen’s case for Aug. 10. Those seeking examining trials hope to prove there is insufficient evidence to indict them.
Peterson has not set other hearings in the case, including one to consider the motion to quash the subpoena.
Griffin alleges in the motion to quash that the subpoena will unduly burden Don Carlos’ officials, whom he said would have to review hundreds of hours of surveillance footage from 16 different positions in order to comply.
Also, he alleges, the manager of the Waco Don Carlos is no longer in possession of the hard drives containing the surveillance because Waco police officials took them as part of their ongoing investigation.
The motion suggests Broden ask prosecutors to turn over the video.
“Finally, this surveillance footage is evidence in an ongoing criminal investigation and in an unrelated civil proceeding to which a gag order has been placed,” the motion to quash says. “To require a non-party to disseminate this information would be unfair and prejudicial and potentially be in conflict with the gag order.”
If the subpoena is not quashed, Don Carlos officials ask the video to be placed under a protective order, barring its public release.
In a response to the motion to quash, Broden called Don Carlos’ arguments “gobbledygook.”
He notes that 54th State District Judge Matt Johnson last week ordered Twin Peaks to comply with an almost identical subpoena on a Twin Peaks franchisee. The judge placed the video under a protective order, preventing Broden from releasing it publicly.
“Twin Peaks has offered transparency to the citizens of McLennan County while, at the same time, recognizing the importance of due process rights of those charged with criminal offenses by agreeing to produce its surveillance videos pursuant to a subpoena,” Broden’s response says.
“On the other hand, Don Carlos seeks to keep McLennan County citizens in the dark and to deny citizens an opportunity to fully prepare their defense. Thus, it should hardly surprise Don Carlos that McLennan County citizens might choose not to patronize a restaurant that acts with such disdain toward public transparency and basic constitutional rights.”
Don Carlos is suing Twin Peaks in Dallas for loss of business as a result of the May 17 shootout.
Guess Ol' Pete needs to rest up from setting all those $1,000,000 bonds and reading 177 identical probable cause affidavits.
I can’t find that term in Black’s Law Dictionary.
It’s a weak argument. Call it what you want, but historically, citizens rights to know do not superseded the defendants right to a fair trial. You see it all the time.
Hmmm...what’s Don Carlos hiding?
The video could possibly exonerate some of the people currently in jail. It could also lend credence to the opinion that the police fired first. Makes me wonder if the Waco police are behind the attempt to hide this video.
LOL, yep, “Don Carlos Mexican Restaurant” must be an integral part of the conspiracy!
“Hmmm...what’s Don Carlos hiding?”
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Whatever the government agents want them to hide.
“Hmmm...what’s Don Carlos hiding?”
Just a guess, but I’d come down thinking that the City of Whacko is involved in this somewhere because they have seen the Don Carlos security video and it paints the city in a poor light! One would say that methinks Don Carlos doth protest too much!
I don't think the police fired first. I think they were caught flat footed because they were sitting in their vehicles.
What a waste of ink. Seems like a non-story, about a frivolous motion that goes no where. Of course the video will be entered into evidence.
Clearly, Don Carlos is looking for a windfall from Twin Peaks, and may get it, but that’s a rabbit trail that has nothing to do with the main event that has so many foamed up.
How’s Waco doing these days anyway? Seems the citizens are still pretty well mute about all the drama. Except occasionally on FR, I have not heard a breath about this story anywhere.
On their knees praying it all goes away before having to write a bunch of checks with a bunch of zeroes.
I don’t believe they were simultaneously caught flat footed sitting in their vehicles AND in position and ready to go with high-powered rifles when the shooting started.
It’s one or the other and given the high-powered rifle thing actually took place I have a hard time even entertaining the ‘sitting in their vehicles’ proposition. It’s just not possible.
If that is the case, they'll have to be turned over during the discovery process.
All the other blather, "undue burden," etc. is their lawyer, puffing up his billable hours. Being incensed about the boilerplate subpoena language, ("contempt," "imprisonment") is likewise.
Some nice business licenses you got there.....
Stroman statement that has been scrubbed from Waco PD facebook
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