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witnesses still gagged, still no indictments:
http://www.kwtx.com/ourtown/home/hea...327497461.html
witnesses gagged, security video not to be released:
http://kxan.com/2015/06/30/judge-iss...shooting-case/A sweeping gag order was issued Tuesday in a lawsuit arising from a May brawl at a roadside restaurant in Waco, Texas, in which nine bikers were killed and 177 people arrested.
The ruling in the lawsuit filed by Matthew Clendennen, a biker who says he was wrongfully arrested, prevents attorneys, witnesses and law enforcement officers involved in the case from discussing it with the media.
McLennan County District Court Judge Matt Johnson also ruled that Clendennen’s attorney, Clint Broden, can view surveillance video from the Twin Peaks franchisee in Waco, but barred it from public release.
witnesses still gagged, still no indictments:
http://www.kwtx.com/ourtown/home/hea...327497461.html
http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.co...on-needed.htmlKangaroo court in Waco: No reason needed to arrest packing pastor with CCL
Gun ownership is on trial in Waco, so why aren't the NRA and all the open-carry advocates going nuts over what's happening regarding prosecutions from the the Twin Peaks biker massacre?
In McLennan County, visiting Judge James Morgan ruled after an examining trial that there was sufficient cause to have arrested a 65-year old concealed carry permit holder who wasn't wearing a biker cut but a Christian t-shirt (he's chaplain to the Bandidos and two veterans groups) because he was carrying legal personal weapons. The judge declared there was probable cause to support an arrest even though no police "officer could offer evidence that Yager conspired to commit murder, assault or any crime that day" Like everyone else arrested in the episode, Yager's bail was initially set at $1 million.
An earlier examining trial found probable cause to arrest a Brenham couple even though police agreed they were "merely present at a murder" that there was no evidence they committed.
Legality aside, how is it that a Texas judge can declare police don't need a reason to arrest legal Christian gun owners and there's not immediately an army of Second Amendment protesters beating down the DA's door? The silence from that wing of the political spectrum on this issue is deafening.
Regardless, the law doesn't seem to matter in Waco anymore. These are kangaroo courts and a flat-out embarrassment to the state.
http://abovethelaw.com/2015/08/the-r...ments#commentsChief Justice Tom Gray of the 10th Court of Appeals, an intermediate appellate court, found that Judge Johnson had abused his discretion by shutting out press coverage. Gray ordered Johnson to vacate the protective order.
Apparently, some judges just don’t know protectionwhen they see it.
This Thursday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest criminal court, issued a stay on the intermediate court’s move to vacate the gag order. Unpack the negatives in that procedural history and you’ll find that the gag order remains in place during the pendency of the appeal.
Regardless of whether Johnson’s order is a “gag” or “protection,” it is certainly a restraint on speech. As in “a prior restraint on speech.” The kind of state action that is presumptively uncons utional.
Prior restraints on speech are likely to violate the First Amendment, but courts permit them in extraordinary cir stances. When the right of a criminal defendant to receive a fair trial would be compromised by pretrial publicity, courts can act. Sometimes when the Sixth Amendment squares off against the First Amendment, the First loses.
However, before issuing this type of order, judges must consider less restrictive means of preserving the integrity of the proceedings. Venue changes, careful voir dire, jury sequestration, and strong jury instructions can go a long way toward preventing a tainted trial. Only in the narrowest of cir stances is abridging free speech and a free press the only viable option.
Do the cir stances in Clendennen’s case rise to this level?
The reason the arrested bikers’ story isn’t in more headlines is not because what took place in Waco on May 17 doesn’t deserve public scrutiny. In fact, the reason the story isn’t in more headlines — a dubious gag order issued by self-interested officials — is itself something that deserves public scrutiny.
"flat-out embarrassment to the state."there's LOTS of embarrassing in TX, but Texians are too stupid to realize it, are actually PROUD TO BE STUPID TEXANS.
106 suspects indicted:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...ootout/415626/
On Wednesday, McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna announced on Facebook that a grand jury had handed down 106 indictments for “engaging in organized crime activity” related to the fight. Reyna promised to indict the remaining 71, too.
That’s an unusually large number of indictments, and the general consensus is that not all of the people who have been arrested and indicted were actually participants in the brawl. Prosecutors haven’t specifically indicated who they think did what in the fight, or who fired the shots that actually killed people. Instead, the dragnet seems intended to break the resistance of gang members, wielding the prospect of lengthy sentences—15 years to life—as a bludgeon to convince some of the individuals who have been indicted to flip and offer prosecutors what they need to convict others, in return for plea bargains.
What’s interesting about the case is the use of the organized-crime statute. Texas’s law is similar to the federal RICO law. Using it affords Abel a whole range of new possibilities.
“It’s very clever on the part of the prosecutor,” Hamilton said.
First, it could make it easier to convict defendants, because the threshold for the crime is low. The corruption statute stipulates a great deal of crimes—the list begins with “murder, capital murder, arson, aggravated robbery, robbery, burglary, theft” and goes on for quite a while—but defendants in this case could likely be put behind bars if prosecutors can just prove that they were members of a criminal gang (in this case, the Cossacks or Bandidos) and that there was an agreement to commit a crime. It doesn’t have to have been an express agreement—it might be enough just to show, for example, that members of the gangs arrived en masse, knowing their rivals would be there and carrying illegal firearms.
“Most of these people, I don’t think they have evidence that they actually committed anything,” said Sandra Guerra Thompson, who directs the Criminal Justice Ins ute at the UH Law Center. “For most of them, they’ll have to prove an agreement to commit some sort of crime.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...bikers/406534/If it turns out that some of the bikers in Waco died from police bullets, authorities will have shot people dead, arrested all the witnesses, and prohibited them from speaking out under penalty of contempt. It’s long past time for state overseers to step in.
There is no way they don't know which bullets killed which person by now. Really looks like they are hiding something.
cuz on Law and Order, they do it in an hour
No.
Your attempts at jokes get worse and worse.
Can you think of any reason the ballistic tests for the victims wold take longer than six months?
sure.
possible that the shooter(s) used reloads and marred the bullets before hand.
possible that the shooter(s) reloaded a smaller caliber bullet into larger brass than the gun that fired it.
so how long would tests for those take?
Give me a link that backs your claim.
I'm not sure that any test could conclusively match a bullet to gun in either of those scenarios.
If you don't believe the possibility of those 2 scenarios, you wouldn't understand any link I provided. But I'm not sure I could find one anyway.
So no extra time would be needed at all since it wouldn't make any difference.
Way to undermine your claim unforced.
all I did was provide you examples of situations where matching a bullet would not be as easy as you imagine
if you don't want to believe them, that's OK.
You provided no reason why test would take longer than six months.
And no one should ever believe you. You make up and always fold when called on it. That's OK.
the reason was that they could still be testing and not finding a match. but I don't know. and neither do you.
Still waiting for that link you'll never post.Why do we not know? Why all the secrecy?but I don't know. and neither do you.
what secrecy?
You just said we don't know.
Why not?
you're asking me if I know why we don't know?
Why all the secrecy?
what secrecy?
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