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.
SOME??? Fully two thirds of them had zero criminal pasts!
MOST of "these 'bikers'" were very probably GOOD GUYS.
By the way -— AMEN to your good post! Didn’t mean to sound snippy in my post above! Lo siento!!
LOLOL!! My thoughts exactly — well said!!
Personally, I think the defenders are driven crazy because they aren’t privy to what the legal system and law enforcement have, in the manner of evidence. The conspiracy defenders find they can’t run the case after all, so they run their mouth. With conspiratorial wonderings, rages, meanderings and musings, their personal “beliefs” and bizarre assumptions, on what they can not possibly know all that much about.
The rest of us who prefer to wait for the damn trial are treated like pests for not mobbing it up with the pitch fork crowd.
Sherman, you don’t just try — you succeed! You succeed, that is, in using a lot of words to stay smack dab on the fence, the better to pretend “open mindedness.”
General Principal #4 of procecutors.
(iv) seek in most circumstances to maintain the secrecy and confidentiality of criminal investigations.
We can certainly agree to disagree on that point.
I further suspect that when Abel Renya arrived on scene on 5/17, he quickly surmised the extent of the mess that he had. He decided to go as big as he could, in hopes that he could sweat out some cooperation and make his case.
It remains to be seen if that worked.
What we do know, as you continue to well point out, is that an unprecedented perversion of due process has ensued. Besides the punishments already meted out, he has potentially set up the Waco PD for being charged with perjury, due to the cookie cutter pc affidavits.
Maybe that explains the lockjaw.
Waco is running a "star chamber" sort of process.
The legal process will run it's course. There are people running their mouths on both sides.
Let me be the first to commend you for the ability to get your observations out to the masses.
WTF you are doing ain't working buddy.
Obviously, the BAR association is part of the conspiracy!
What are they trying to hide?
/s
Lecture me? I think not.
Poor old Rita, safe and secure in her own belief that conspiracies and abuses of government power only happen in other countries, fails utterly to see the facts in front of her; indeed, she struggles valiantly to pretend they aren't there, that waiting YEARS for MANY TRIALS for at least 117 Americans who had ZERO criminal histories or arrests, whose lives have already been grievously harmed, is well and good.
People with mindsets like Rita OKs are how America will die.
“I think it’s fair to conclude that most of the accused didn’t commit conspriacy to commit capital murder. However, that is what the state accuses them of.”
I believe they are charged with Organized Crime activity, not conspiracy to commit murder.
You want to know what someone else thinks the truth is. Like I say -- if you wanted to know the truth, you'd have done the research and would know it right now.
You are only fooling yourself.
Why do you think it’s a pretense? I can’t actually be open-minded? With little actual evidence to date, don’t you think it’s a little early to be shutting minds down?
Does the way the legal system handled this look fishy? Absolutely. Do I know what mistakes or crimes were committed by the cops? No, and neither do you. About all there is now is suspicion.
But numerous people take that suspicion, run with it and decide that they know in detail what happened and why.
Can’t anybody else see this is exactly what happened with Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown? People decided they know what happened, before any real evidence was presented, then when the evidence differed from what they’d decided, it was taken as proof of a coverup.
I was out of the country when the Martin thing broke, and the overseas news presented it as a simple case of a white racist thug hunting down and killing an innocent black child. I believed it, silly me.
I’ll just sit over here and pretend to be open-minded about the Waco case till evidence is presented.
The biker bar.
Last thing I need is a Californian lecturing me how I need to respond to a Waco incident.
When I say relaxed, what I mean is that the judge will allow evidence to be presented over objections - he's the only decider exposed. At trial, judges will sometimes remove the jury before allow evidence to be proposed, over objection.
kind of like an Iowan telling me why I should love ethanol.
Investigatory secrecy generally expires at the point of “accusation and arrest.” Investigation complete, we have enough to convict this criminal.
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