Posts Tagged ‘Ralph Strother’

Waco Biker Trial Update: No Prosecutions Under Abel Reyna

Tuesday, September 4th, 2018

The much-delayed Waco biker trials will be delayed again until defeated McLennan County DA Abel Reyna is out of office:

A judge, who said Friday he has been “troubled by the whole Twin Peaks matter from its inception,” put off the trials of bikers in his court until after the first of the year because he wants the new McLennan County district attorney to review how the remaining Twin Peaks cases will be handled.

Judge Ralph Strother, the morning after conducing a daylong pretrial hearing in Twin Peaks defendant Tom Modesto Mendez’s first-degree felony riot case, decided on his own to postpone Mendez’s trial, which was set to start Sept. 10.

Strother denied a motion Thursday by Mendez’s attorney to throw out the indictment after prosecutors agreed to amend language in the riot indictment that more closely tracks wording in the statute.

Both sides have been preparing for weeks for the Mendez case, and each side had scheduled witnesses, some from out of state, to be ready to go Sept. 10.

The sexual assault trial of former Baylor University football player Shawn Oakman had been set for Sept. 10 as a backup to the Mendez case, but it, too, was pushed back Friday. Strother granted the delay in that case, which Oakman’s attorney requested a few hours after Mendez’s delay, saying a character witness who is out of state cannot be subpoenaed in time for Sept. 10.

It was Strother, even more than Mendez’s attorney, Jaime Peña, who questioned prosecutors Thursday about the riot indictment and expressed concerns that they, in effect, had turned what normally is a Class B misdemeanor into a crime that possibly subjects the defendants to life in prison.

And remember that all this is after most of the original, overbroad charges against various bikers present at the Twin Peaks shootout were dismissed.

Snip.

“I think a fresh set of eyes re-evaluating how the state is pursuing these cases is warranted,” Peña said. “That is essentially what the judge is saying. He wants to push it into the new year and let the new DA look at this.”

Barry Johnson beat incumbent DA Abel Reyna by 20 percentage points in the March Republican primary and will run unopposed in November. Johnson, who takes office in January, said during the campaign that one of the first things he will do is assemble a team to review the remaining Twin Peaks cases.

Reyna has not attended any of the numerous hearings involving Twin Peaks defendants since he lost the primary.

The judge’s position is reasonable, but if I were a resident of McLennan County, I would be pissed not only that Reyna so badly screwed up prosecution with his unconstitutional “collective guilt” approach, but that he can’t even be arsed to do his damn job since voters handed him his walking papers…

Real Charges Finally Filed in Waco Biker Shootout

Saturday, May 12th, 2018

Finally, just shy of three years after the Twin Peaks shootout between rival biker gangs that left nine people dead, suspects have finally been indicted on charges of murder in their deaths:

A McLennan County grand jury Wednesday re-indicted 24 of the remaining 37 defendants in the Twin Peaks biker shootout on a variety of charges, as the district attorney’s office continues to veer sharply from the prosecutorial path it took three years ago.

The bikers had previously been indicted in 2015 or 2016 on identical charges of engaging in organized criminal activity as members of criminal street gangs.

The new charges handed down Wednesday include three murder counts, in addition to first-degree and second-degree riot charges and tampering with physical evidence charges.

Prosecutors are expected to dismiss the cases of remaining Twin defendants who were not re-indicted Wednesday, officials close to the cases said. The statute of limitations to charge bikers with riot runs out next week, though there is no statute of limitations on murder.

While the DA’s office did not dismiss the engaging in organized criminal activity charges, the new charges will supersede the older charges and are the ones prosecutors say they will pursue from now on.

The original organized crime charge carried a maximum sentence of life in prison. Some of the defendants now are facing a lighter possible maximum sentence, while those who were indicted on murder or first-degree riot charges could still be sentenced to life.

Judge Matt Johnson of Waco’s 54th State District Court said Wednesday he will not require the bikers re-indicted in his court to make post-indictment bonds or to be arrested again. Judge Ralph Strother of 19th State District Court said he also will not require the bikers to post new bonds, saying he deems the original bonds to be sufficient.

Nine bikers were killed and 20 injured on May 17, 2015 in the shootout between Bandidos and Cossacks at the former Twin Peaks restaurant. The DA’s office has dismissed 118 of the original 155 Twin Peaks indictments in the past few months, and none of those dismissed defendants were re-indicted Wednesday.

Among those still facing charges with a possible life sentence is Jeffrey Battey, a 53-year-old Bandido from Ponder, who was re-indicted on a murder count and a first-degree felony riot count in the shooting death of Matthew Smith.

Seth Sutton, Battey’s Waco-based attorney, said if “Reyna’s regime” had wanted the grand jury to get a complete picture of the evidence, prosecutors should have allowed Sutton to address the panel.

“As with the original indictment from 2015, Mr. Reyna clearly did not want the grand jury to hear the truth,” Sutton said. “We look forward to the day when we will finally get to present exactly what happened on May 17, 2015, to a jury of 12 McLennan County citizens.

“It is this kind of misguided prosecution that has wasted millions of taxpayer dollars, has undermined the public confidence in our system of justice and has produced hundreds of dismissals with no convictions. As we have maintained from the beginning, we believe that justice will prevail for Mr. Battey and that he will be acquitted of all wrongdoing,” he said.

Reyna has kept a low profile at the courthouse since his defeat in the March Republican primary, and he did not return phone messages Wednesday.

I’ll bet he didn’t. If Reyna had just done his freaking job rather than pursue an unconstitutional policy of collective guilt, these indictments could have been handed down more than two years ago.

Also indicted in the murder of Matthew Smith was Ray Arnold Allen, 48, of Krum, a Bandido who also was indicted on riot charges.

According to court records, Smith, 27, of Keller, was shot twice — once in the upper back and once in the abdomen. The bullet in his back was described as a “medium-caliber jacketed projectile.” The bullet through his abdomen hit his right kidney and aorta before exiting.

A Waco police officer reported that as he approached the Twin Peaks shootout scene he saw Battey and Allen standing behind the restaurant “in a triangulated position” in relation to Smith, who was lying on the ground about five yards away and “gasping for air,” according to court documents.

An officer noticed Allen had a silver handgun in his hand and said Battey had been shot in his upper right shoulder, according to the documents.

Also Wednesday, the grand jury indicted Glenn Allen Walker, 46, on murder and riot counts. He is charged in the death of Richard Kirschner, 47, of Wylie.

Kirschner, 47, suffered a gunshot wound to his right thigh, one to the left knee and one in the left buttock. He also suffered a superficial cut to the right side of his neck, a scalp laceration and abrasions to his face, trunk and extremities, reports show.

The grand jury also re-indicted Jacob Carrizal, 36, president of the Dallas Bandidos chapter and the only one of the original 155 indicted bikers to stand trial so far. Carrizal’s trial ended in mistrial when the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict.

Carrizal was re-indicted on a first-degree riot charge, which has a maximum possible sentence of life in prison.

This is a vast step forward toward bringing justice to all involved, innocent and guilty alike. The issue of law enforcement overreaction, which appears to be a significant cause in some of the deaths, remains unresolved.

(Hat tip: Dwight.)

Waco Biker Trials Update: More Dismissals

Saturday, May 5th, 2018

More news on the Twin Peaks biker fight indictments:

Frustrated by a lack of movement in the Twin Peaks cases, a judge set trial dates Friday for three bikers, while McLennan County prosecutors dismissed 13 more cases involving those indicted in the May 2015 shootout.

Judge Matt Johnson of Waco’s 54th State District Court summoned six members of the Cossacks motorcycle group or their support groups to court Friday to get updates on how their cases will be moving forward.

On Thursday, prosecutors dismissed 15 cases against bikers who had been summoned to court Friday, leaving a much smaller group at the hearing in Johnson’s court. Prosecutors also formally refused an unindicted case involving Donald Fowler on Thursday.

After the hearing, prosecutors presented Johnson with 13 new dismissals, most of them involving members of the Bandidos group or their support clubs.

Cases dismissed Friday involve Justin Garcia, Cory McAlister, Jimmy Pond, Jason Dillard, Kenneth Carlisle, Richard Donias, Gilbert Zamora, Ronald Warren, Richard Smith, Phillip Sampson, Christopher Rogers, Rolando Reyes and John Martinez.

The dismissals this week bring the number of pending cases to 98, down from 155 bikers indicted after the shootout in which nine were killed and 20 were wounded and injured.

Since District Attorney Abel Reyna was defeated in the March Republican primary, his office has dismissed 56 indicted Twin Peaks cases and refused prosecution on 33 others. Special prosecutors appointed to handle four cases in which Reyna recused his office dismissed one indicted case this week.

Reyna did not attended Friday’s hearing, nor was he at a similar hearing 19th State District Judge Ralph Strother held last week.

Johnson set Wesley McAlister’s case for Sept. 10 as a backup case to the retrial of Jacob Carrizal, the Bandidos Dallas chapter president whose trial ended in November with a hung jury and a mistrial.

Carrizal has a new attorney, and the judge said if he is not ready to try the case on Sept. 10, Wesley McAlister will take that trial slot. A jury panel has been summoned to report to court Aug. 24 to fill out questionnaires in the case.

Johnson also set trial dates for early November for Jacob Reese and Timothy Shayne Satterwhite.

Dallas attorney Clint Broden, who represents Richard Luther, asked the court to set a trial date, but said he will file a motion to recuse Reyna that would require a hearing because he thinks Reyna is a material witness in the case.

The judge agreed to set Luther’s trial date after the first of the year, when Reyna will be out of office and the potential conflict will be resolved.

It’s hard to think of such a high-profile modern criminal prosecution, following an incident in which so many people dead, where the prosecution of the case was so badly bungled. (Feel free to suggest alternate candidates in the comments below.) It’s almost as though all the mass indictments and endless delays were monuments to Reyna’s inability to actually indict specific individuals for the murders of other specific individuals, and now that he’s out of the way, maybe some actual justice can be salvaged from the ruins of his incompetence…

(Hat tip: Dwight.)