The Trials of Tom DeLay

My former congressman, Tom DeLay, has a problem. Here he has a 3 year prison sentence hanging over his head for conspiracy and money laundering, and now, come to find out, in his appeal to the 3rd Federal Circuit Court of Appeals he  is facing a two to one Democratic to Republican judge panel.

Not because of the luck of the draw, as it turns out.

As it turns out, it is because whenever they asked a Republican justice to sit for the case, they begged off. Republicans have declared the former Congressional majority leader persona non grata and are diving for the weeds.

So Tom is up against a Democrat majority panel.

Not to say that his lawyers aren’t still trying to fight to configure the panel to be more like one to their liking. They continue to badger one Democratic judge for an answer on whether she will recuse herself because she had some fairly negative remarks about DeLay several years ago at a political convention.

My question to the lawyer, though, is whether or not a federal court justice is allowed to exercise their first amendment rights of free speech. This means that 5 of the Supreme Court justices should recuse themselves from any and all cases involving a Democrat.

I wonder how Tom is going to look in those orange overalls.

Double Dipping or Triple Dipping at the Public Trough

You know, today something that has been flying below the political radar for years in Fort Bend County suddenly popped up. You’ve heard the stories about how Governor Perry, still the sitting governor of Texas despite how much time he is spending carrying on the people’s business, has also officially retired from state government service, earning him a pension on top of his $150 grand a year paycheck as governor.

Double dipping.

Something he argues as perfectly legal. Maybe so, maybe so. But not ethical. Ethics and Rick Perry have had a formal disagreement for years, enriching Perry beyond human belief.

Now come to find out, one of Fort Bend County’s local Justices of the Peace, one Gary Janssen running for re-election in Precinct 1 Place 1 this year, has not one, not two, but three count ‘em three jobs. Two public service, one private practice.

All of this coming at a time when jobs are stretched so thin. Why does one guy need three jobs?

Judge Janssen is not only the Fort Bend County Justice of the Peace in Needville, he is also the Needville Municipal Judge. He also runs his own law firm. Yep, you’ve got it, three jobs. Some Americans would like to have just one.

Leading me to ask, are Fort Bend County taxpayers getting the most bang for their buck? I have to ask myself, why am I paying a full time salary to a part-time judge? Appearing at a Justice of the Peace court here is dicey at best. They set their own hours and you have to take time off of work to appear. You lose money sometimes, and not just because of the traffic fines.

You know, these people have to learn to share. They have to learn to spread the wealth and not dip so heavily into the public trough.

Word has it that Judge Janssen is being primaried. A lawyer named Gregory A. Thompson apparently has filed to oppose Janssen.

And you know, I have no knowledge of his politics and don’t care really. But if I ever voted in a Republican Primary I definitely would never vote for a triple dipper. I’d vote for a guy who would very probably take a pay cut to opt in to public service.

I’d vote for Gregory A. Thompson.

Amanda Knox Cashes In

See? I say it here it comes out there. Last year as the world was stunned to see an Italian appeals court overturn American foreign exchange student Amanda Knox’s controversial guilty verdict in a highly publicized trial, I wrote this: “But if Amanda Knox doesn’t write a book and a screenplay and become deliriously rich over this, I’ll eat my hat.”

Well I guess my hat, and my GI tract are both safe.

Amanda has a book deal.

From the Seattle Times:

“The young exchange student whose conviction in Italy and eventual acquittal on murder charges made headlines worldwide has an agreement with HarperCollins to tell her story. The 24-year-old Seattle resident, imprisoned for four years in Perugia, Italy, has not publicly discussed her ordeal beyond a brief expression of gratitude upon her release last October.”

“‘Knox will give a full and unflinching account of the events that led to her arrest in Perugia and her struggles with the complexities of the Italian judicial system,’ HarperCollins said in a statement Thursday.”

The deal? A cool $4 million. That’s a million dollars for each and every year she languished in a Perugia jail knowing that she had been railroaded by junk science, a lascivious press, and for the crime of being a pretty American girl.

Now…about that screenplay…

It Depends on Which Federal Interference You Prefer

In reaction to the redrawn State House and Senate district maps revealed by a 3-judge panel of federal district court judges, Texas Attorney General reacted with righteous outrage that the will of the people of Texas to elect themselves the most conservative state legislature in state history has been usurped by these militant judges (two of whom are Bush appointees).

From the Austin American-Statesman:

“In a response filed with the court, Attorney General Greg Abbott challenged the three sets of maps — one for the Senate, two alternatives for the House — as an improper overstepping of authority by ‘unelected federal judges’ over the will of the elected Texas Legislature, which approved its own maps earlier this year.”

That’s right, they weren’t elected. Two were appointed by George W. Bush.

But today we hear that House Speaker Joe Straus has also weighed in, and has issued the threat that if the 3-judge panel doesn’t rule on maps that are more similar to the ones passed by the legislature, that they would file suit and take it to the US Supreme Court.

That’s right, that other panel of unelected federal judges, the one that rules for Republicans far more often than it rules for Democratic causes.

So it’s not so much about the unelected part, and it certainly isn’t about the part about them being federal officials ruling over state matters, another thing intimated by the AG, it’s all about who is on your team.

Proving again that the maps were drawn up with the most heinous of self-interested motives: winning through subversion of the election process.

That is … they are still doing it. If this isn’t completely obvious, justice is truly blind.

Jury Duty: An Inconvenient Truth

So I was called to Jury Duty today.

Now before I get started, let me just say that I am a huge fan of the American jury system. It is practically the only thing we do besides voting that even comes close to a manifestation of being citizens of the county, state and nation. It is a necessary function. It is an honorable thing to do when you serve on a jury.

I just wish the people who call you up to serve, to do the honorable thing, didn’t make your life miserable while you were doing the honorable thing.

Jury Duty is never a convenient thing. Most people have lives - even I have a life - that have to be put on hold for a few hours, a day or two, or in the extreme cases of weeks at a time. But we all agree that Jury Duty is just that, a duty. One that one must perform from time to time.

So I was inconvenienced today, as were my 151 students who were set to doing what they call “book work” by their hand-picked substitute teacher.

And not wanting them to be further inconvenienced, and not wanting to assign more mindless “book work” I arrived right at the appointed hour to a roomful of fellow jurors who don’t know about what you do to avoid getting picked.

You arrive at the last minute and you sit in the back.

Then the district clerk’s staff read some words from a paper that must be 30 years old because nothing is mentioned about cell phones. You are read the riot act about all the bad things that happen to you if you fail to appear (we were all there) and finally told that we were not allowed to leave the room or would be escorted back inside by a bailiff. And then they show a video on Jury Duty. About 10 minutes long. By that time the judge is supposed to have arrived.

But he doesn’t arrive. First the district staffers have no explanation then an explanation that the judge is in a very important hearing. Doubtful. So the staffer jokes that maybe we wanted to see the video again, getting some laughs, and then she showed the video again.

Twice more.

It wasn’t a joke.

Sitting in the back, I had light enough to read my book. Those in front had to sit in the dark - captives. At least I was allowed to read my book.

Things finally got started when the judge arrived about 2 and a half hours after the appearance time on my summons. I got a lot of reading done.

Needless to say, the whole process went at a snail’s pace as people lined up to offer this excuse or that excuse why they should be excused from jury service. I looked at my watch. It was lunchtime. No word on when this was going to end.

Then the speeches began. No, you will not get to know what was said. I am sworn to silence on that.

Some papers needed to be filled out so we then waited for them to be distributed. And then the line formed as they individually processed each juror’s paperwork. During this time an event occurred that, out of respect for privacy, I will decline to describe. Needless to say the EMT truck arrived quickly. Justice moves slowly, but EMTs move like greased lightning.

The whole process from beginning to end, took 7 hours, with maybe 15 minutes of my time actually spent doing something.

I guess my point is, and it’s a vague one, that when people are doing the honorable thing and reporting for Jury Duty, there should be a modicum of respect for them. Getting beaten about the head over what would happen to them if they didn’t show up, when they had already showed up, was a little over the top. That and these people all went to great lengths to report on time. The judge could have respected that.

What Tom Didn’t Know

As promised, Tom DeLay’s hotshot big-dollar lawyer Dick DeGuerin produced Tom DeLay’s calendar so that he could prove unequivocally that Tom DeLay didn’t know about the democracy subverting dollar swap with the RNC on September 13, 2002. DeLay didn’t know about it because he wasn’t there.

Quod erat demonstratum.

One would think. Prosecutors pounced and turned the calendar back two pages and pointed at a September 11 appointment showing that Jim Ellis was in a meeting just after receiving a Fed Ex shipment that consisted of the blank check that would draw on TRMPACs corporate account. The check that he would hand over to the RNC two days later.

What was that meeting doing on Tom DeLay’s calendar?

DeGuerin missed that one.

Some hotshot lawyer.

Recovering, DeGuerin got two former aides to testify that DeLay wouldn’t have been sitting in on that meeting. “That would not necessarily have been a meeting for Tom,” one of them testified.

Maybe not. Maybe not.

So then why write it down in his calendar?

The aide replied that the meeting probably was on DeLay's schedule so he would know it was going on.

So here’s my question. Why would Tom DeLay need to know that a meeting was going on but not what was going on in the meeting? That makes no sense at all.

But getting back to Dick DeGuerin and a quote from one of my favorite films of all time, “My Cousin Vinny,” Dick DeGuerin, win some lose some.

A DA Three-Fer

Now every once in awhile I get an e-mail message forwarded to me that originates from one Teabagger or another, but that is because I asked my cousin, who gets them nearly every day to forward them to me.

I like to see what the Dark Side is saying without having to venture there and wade through the mis-spellings, ALL CAPS TEXT and exclamation points (honestly these people write like Glenn Beck talks).

But what irritates me is that come election time my mailbox gets inundated with those color glossy cardstock campaign cards from Republican candidates.

To my knowledge, I have never given my mailing address to a single Republican so I have no idea how I wound up on their list. But they all send me their campaign paraphernalia.

But today it was unreal.

I received four pieces, all of them the same size (6 by 11) mailers, and 100% of them coming from a Republican DA candidate. One each from Healey and Raymond, and two different ones from Nina Schaefer.

It was just unreal that they were all received on the exact same day. What are the chances of that happening?

Here’s a photograph of them.

Of the three, Healey’s is the tamest. His attacks consist entirely of the lack of experience of one his two opponents (Raymond) and that the other is “Weak on Crime” ostensibly because she doesn’t prosecute criminals, she defends them.

Raymond devotes most of his ink attacking Healey and cites the Fort Bend Herald Coaster’s call for his replacement, quotes a juror (and taxpayer), and cites a Texas Ethics Commission opinion on Healey’s “illegal campaign activities.” His sole criticism of Schaefer is that she is TOO LIBERAL for Fort Bend County.

Obviously, he is not worried about Nina Shaefer.

Schaefer, on the other hand trumps both candidates by sending out not one mailer but two. In one she attacks Healey for his many legal and political sins (as I recall Healey’s assistant, Mike Elliott, was the sinner most of the time). In the other she fires shots at both Healey and Raymond, bringing up Raymond’s association with Joey Sula, the guy who bilked Fort Bend County political consultant Karen Pearson out of 500 large.

Pearson, as it turns out, managed DA Healey’s campaigns in the past.

Reading all of this just assaults the senses a little bit because one of these rascals is going to be elected (or re-elected) to District Attorney because no Democrat would file in the race.

So, what the heck, since Richard Raymond says Nina Schaefer is too liberal for Fort Bend, and since Nina Schaefer definitely pulled on her punch in her hit piece, what the heck. If you vote in the Republican primary you should probably put the red color in the box next to Schaefer’s name when you vote.

Republicans in a Fracas in Fort Bend County

You had to know it was going to happen. Here in mean-spirited Fort Bend County where Republicans have had a stranglehold on government for decades now, when they have a primary they treat it like the General Election because they have had it their way for so long that they forget themselves and go at each other in public without mercy or remorse.

Witness the current primary race between Rick Forlano and Jeff McMeans. Both are running for the Republican nomination in an open seat in County Court-At-Law #2.

A seat being vacated by Jeff McMeans’ daddy, (as Forlano refers to him), Walter S. McMeans who is retiring.

All over my development Jeff McMeans’ campaign signs sprang up. They were even starting to challenge the primacy of which DA candidate’s signs were most numerous.

But something happened, and where you once saw a forest of McMeans signs up and down the block, they have all been taken down, but I think not by the usual method of sign stealing. That only happens to my signs.

My curiosity over this phenomenon was satisfied like the perennial curious cat this weekend when I listened to a voicemail message left on my phone the day before. It was a very poor quality recording of a guy speaking into a wastebasket or something. It insinuated that Jeff McMeans was a wife beater (without saying it) and that the county DA’s office made the case simply go away.

A double shot, if you will, against McMeans as well as County DA John Healey, who was the County DA when the recording reports that the county sheriff had forwarded a domestic violence case “to prosecution” (also known as the County DA).

So, mystery solved, right? The Good Republicans of my development might think it’s fitting and proper to steal my lawn signs, but reprehensible to be a wife beater or in this case, accused of it in a whispering campaign.

And yes, I downloaded the recording, and no, I am not putting it up for you to hear. That, I fear would benefit the campaign of Rick Forlano who thinks he’s got the election in the bag and has won Jeff McMeans’ daddy’s job.

No, I think I’ll save that for later in case Republicans who go to the primary simply go there to vote for the ones they have always voted for, in this case, for a guy by the name of McMeans.

It could be useful later on.

Judge Joel Clouser “Allowed” on the Ballot

I heard this via word of mouth last week, but now see that Bev Carter has the story on the Fort Bend Star website.

I like spreading word of mouth stuff around, but do feel more comfortable when I see it printed elsewhere. Comfortable like getting the story right comfortable.

It seems that Tony Sherman, who has filed to oppose Judge Joel Clouser in his bid to be re-elected to his Precinct 2 Justice of the Peace tried to do an end-around earlier this month, and get himself, and himself alone on the primary ballot. Sherman looked at the 747 signatures that Judge Clouser filed in a candidates petition, in lieu of the $1000 filing fee, and called some of them into question to his friend and County Chair of the Fort Bend Democratic Party, Elaine Bishop.

Bishop took Sherman’s suggestion and counted 160 names that lacked a city, state or zip code on the signature line. If included with 144 signatures which were found to be invalid, that would take his total valid signatures from 744 to 440, 60 shy of the 500 minimum required signatures.

If Clouser were excluded from the ballot, Sherman would have found himself elected because a Republican running in Precinct 2 has next to no chance of becoming elected to anything.

An election by County Chair fiat, and at first, that was what was going to happen.

But in the article by Carter, it seems there was a change of heart. It seems that Bishop now feels that it was the voters who should decide who should be elected to the office.

From the Fort Bend Star:

“Bishop said she felt very strongly that the voters should decide, and therefore she and Sherman had come to an agreement to let Clouser’s name remain on the ballot.”

Now you know, that makes absolutely no sense at all. If the minimum number of signatures aren’t collected, the candidate should by all rights be excluded. Take it to the extreme: how many under 500 is permissible then? 60 (as in this case)? 61? 100? 499?

A candidate’s petition is meant to show that a candidate has a voter base and is not just any old nut who wants to run for office for free.

So Bishop’s decision, and the logic and reasoning that went into it, was ludicrous and actually anti-democratic. But that was the reason she gave for including Clouser on the ballot.

But that wasn’t the real reason.

The real reason was two-fold. First, the Supreme Court has already ruled that a candidate’s petition signer does not have to include their City and State information as long as the voter is registered to vote. Something that is easily verified on the voter enrollment records.

That is, quibbling in this way to keep people off the ballot is not the intention of the founding fathers. They wanted to make it as easy as possible for people to run for office.

Second, with that decision as background, keeping Clouser off the ballot would result in a massive lawsuit. A lawsuit that would have exposed the incompetence of the Chair.

The incompetence of a County Chair who by all rights, and by all minimum expectations, should be up to snuff on the latest rules on the requirements of candidates’ petitions signatures.

It also underlines the sheer ignorance of the man who wants to replace Judge Clouser. Sherman claims that Judge Clouser was “skirting the law” in being allowed on the ballot, something that he was going to take to the precinct chairs.

Sherman, on the other hand has been caught red-handed attempting to skirt the election.

Judge Clouser came to the Fort Bend Democrats’ club meeting last weekend and I videoed his remarks. He also attended the Fort Bend County Democratic Party meeting.

Sherman attended neither meeting.

Here is what Judge Clouser said to the Democratic club meeting. I especially like his description of his “Teen Court.”

Shakeup at Fort Bend County DA Office

Ironically coming on the heels of getting the maximum sentence imposed for a drunk driving manslaughterer, Fort Bend’s District Attorney John Healey fired his senior Assistant District Attorney, Mike Elliott at the end of the day yesterday.

Bob Dunn at FortBendNow has a complete story on this including quotes from Elliott himself who was oddly very talkative about his public sacking.

Healey wouldn’t comment on the affair other than to say that the reasons for firing Elliott had to do with “performance issues.”

Elliott, however, had it differently, saying that the chief reason for his firing was that Healey feared that Elliott would run against him next year. Firing him, I guess, was his way of marginalizing him.

As if he wasn’t already marginalized by his past deeds in prosecuting the mayor of Fulshear and planting racketeering charges on former employees of a local roofing company.

Or how he went after Republican Political Consultant Karen Pearson’s former boyfriend.

I really don’t think that the DA had much to be afraid of vis-à-vis Mike Elliott. Not in the way Elliott imagines, that is.

Because the truth is, Mike Elliott was Healey’s albatross. Keeping him on year after year, with all of his shenanigans out in public was testimony to John Healey’s incredible mishandling of the office of the district attorney.

Either that or Elliott had Healey over a barrel with possession of a bunch of photographs.

Who knows where this will lead, what with Republicans having at each other from one end of the country to the other. One can only hope that it will lead to having a new DA next year, followed by maybe an outbreak of justice in Fort Bend County.

Judge Susan Criss on Justice In Texas

[This is cross-posted from the Fort Bend Democrats’ website]

Well Hurricane Gustav did little to rain on our parade this past August 31st as the Fort Bend Democrats launched the campaign season with a Labor Day barbecue and fundraiser at the Sugar Land Community Center. Some may have been turned away by the weatherman, some may have had plans for the long weekend, but this did not prevent us from having a very $ucce$$ful event.

At the top of the speakers list was Judge Susan Criss, of the 212th District Court in Galveston County. Judge Criss shared with us some of her first hand experiences of justice in her court, and contrasted those with the questionable, laughable and some downright tragic examples of “justice” evident in the higher courts in Texas. Criss noted how some cases have become fodder for Hollywood screenwriters as they look for improbable story lines for their law-oriented TV shows.

But why not just let you see for yourself, huh?

Fort Bend County’s DA is a Fine(d) Elected Official

Now this isn’t the first time that the Fort Bend County district attorney, John Healey, has been the focus of ethics. The last time it was a local TV station reporter’s coverage of DA Healey’s employee, Mike Elliott, whose unethical behavior didn’t escape the notice of his boss, who removed him from a case that he was building against 7 innocent (as it turned out) men. Then there was the other time when Healey himself requested a list of those who were pressuring a local judge in a case he was hearing, so that he could build a witness list for his prosecution of the case.

And now, today, in FortBendNow we find that AD Healey has been fined $1500 by the Texas Ethics Commission for violations in his campaign reporting. The relevant document is here.

Now the FortBendNow article mentioned that the person who filed an ethics complaint over Healey’s campaign fund reporting was an “anonymous complainant,” so we weren’t given the source of Healey’s ethical woes in that article, but I have an idea who it was. All I can say is, this wasn’t the first time this complainant has filed one of these, nor will it be the last.

Healey denies all wrongdoing, and cites errors in arithmetic among other things, as the origin of his campaign reporting problems.

But now the matter is settled, and Healey’s campaign fund is one and a half large lighter as a consequence. That’s $1500 that won’t go to 2008 Republican campaigns, nor to his own.

This is a case of Republican campaign funds that are truly well-spent.

Justice, Texas Style

Now I fully admit that I am a foreigner to these parts. I come from a land of milk and honey. Of bread and circuses. Of dates and nuts. I come from Southern California. In California judges are elected, just as they are here in Texas. But when Californians elect judges, they may or may not know what their party affiliation is.

In California, all judges run in non-partisan elections.

In Texas, we have non-partisan elections as well. Our school board elections are non-partisan. So are our water board elections. The thing is, here in Texas, even when the party affiliation of a candidate for non-partisan office is not stated, everyone seems to go out of their way to find out how they vote anyway.

So Texas is like that.

In Texas we like our judges with partisan stripes, and we generally like those stripes to be red in color. Not burgundy red mind you, not cerise, but full out neoconservative red.

I imagine that neoconservatives in judges’ robes must give Texans some security and comfort. That’s why they return these guys to office over and over again. That and the fact that neoconservative lucre always seems to find its way into their campaign funds.

Witness a recent case against neoconservative home builder Bob Perry of Perry Homes. The Texas Supreme Court overturned a ruling earlier this month in favor of a couple who bought a defective house from Perry. Their $800,000 award, one that they had fought for, for ten long years was completely nullified by this court, whose judges had collectively received $265,000 in campaign contributions from Perry.

Now why on Earth the Supreme Court justices thought it would look OK to hear a case concerning one of their big campaign contributors, I cannot fathom. Perhaps it is the fact that one or two might have been able to recuse themselves from the case, but not the whole freaking court.

Perry is on in his years and reclusive. Not so his son whose entire private life has unfolded in family court here in Fort Bend County. To read the whole sad tale, go read Bev’s Burner at the Fort Bend Star (5/21/08 and 5/14/08). Bob Perry, who is a drunken wife beater by his own son’s admission, has lots of influence in the county courts, too.

He has a near stranglehold on justice in Fort Bend County, having contributed to each family court judges’ campaign fund, except for one. So when each family court judge had to recuse himself from hearing his son’s divorce case, they brought in a visiting judge.

According to Bev Carter, the one judge who had not received a campaign contribution from Perry had been bypassed in favor of the visiting judge because the visiting judge allowed the divorce case to be entered into the public record with only the initials of the divorcing couple. She was told that Judge Robert Kern, the only judge whose campaign coffers are Perry-free, would not have allowed a case to be entered with only their initials.

But visiting judge, Judge Ron “Bubba” Pope had no problem allowing that. Said in fact that it was perfectly legal.

Now whether it is legal or not, I haven’t a care in the world. The fact is that divorce cases in Texas have the full names of the divorcing couples associated with them. Not their initials. Perry was obviously trying to keep his son’s name out of the news. Even out of the court records. Too bad he didn’t consult his son about this, he could have saved himself some trouble.

No, I don’t care if it’s legal or not. It’s not right. It stinks. It smells of roadkill. This is special treatment to a high degree. Special treatment to a family that has contributed mazuma millions to conservative causes locally and nationally.

Justice in Texas? It runs like a well-oiled machine.

Well oiled.

Justice Department: Torture of Prisoners is Justified Despite Geneva Convention

The New York Times has just released Justice Department letters stating the government’s official opinion on the torturing of prisoners, vis-à-vis the Geneva Convention, illuminating for the first time the rationale behind still-secret CIA interrogation rules.

It seems, according to the Justice Department, that how you interrogate a prisoner very much depends on who the prisoner is, and how desirable is the information they hope to extract. Once a prisoner is classified as a “terrorist”, new rules apply. If the person is deemed to possess information that is considered important, new rules apply. From The Times:

“‘The fact that an act is undertaken to prevent a threatened terrorist attack, rather than for the purpose of humiliation or abuse, would be relevant to a reasonable observer in measuring the outrageousness of the act,’ said Brian A. Benczkowski, a deputy assistant attorney general, in the letter, which had not previously been made public.”

Torture, then is OK when it is done on someone in order to extract desirable information on future terror attacks, but not OK when the whole idea is to inflict humiliation on prisoners, or to generally abuse them.

In other words, if you are inflicting pain on a prisoner because of it gives one some sadistic pleasure, that’s bad. Only when you hope to get some useful information is it justified.

And the prisoner must be labeled a terrorist. That seems to be an important element of the opinions.

The casual observer would wonder what is the harm in that? Isn’t that a reasonable approach in a terrorist situation?

The problem is one of definition. One nation’s “terrorist” is another nation’s “freedom fighter”. Were the Minutemen of Massachusetts terrorists? Were the Sandinistas? What about the soldiers and militias that have put into power several African governments? If we go about labeling each and every person who takes up arms against America or any sovereign government, terrorists, especially when they are fighting on their own soil, it at least calls into question America’s credibility. At most, it gives each and every future adversary of the United States a rationale for torture of our own soldiers.

Something that the signatories of the Geneva Convention hoped to avoid.

Senator Ron Wyden (D - Oregon), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, seems to agree with this assessment:

“If the United States used subjective standards in applying its interrogation rules, he said, then potential enemies might adopt different standards of treatment for American detainees based on an officer’s rank or other factors. ‘The cumulative effect in my interpretation is to put American troops at risk,’ Mr. Wyden said.“

I guess the next time we hear about our troops being abused at the hands of their captors (and that day will come, as it has now been guaranteed) we will all know who to blame: George Bush and his malignant Department of Justice.

How We Do Justice in Fort Bend County

I swear, just when you think it’s safe to go out and play in the traffic you hear yet another story about the wild and woolly goings on in the halls of Fort Bend County’s judicial system.

Bob Dunn fired off yet another amazing report today about how Bud Childers, the newly elected judge who presides in Fort Bend County Court at Law No. 1 now wants to ununrecuse himself. That is, to make it perfectly clear, Childers decided to recuse himself from hearing a case to certify a Needville High school student, the one who burned down parts of his school earlier this year, to be tried as an adult. Then for the actual trial, Childers wanted to unrecuse himself and hear the case.

Now, come to find out, Childers has changed his mind again, and wants to ununrecuse himself. That is rerecuse himself. That is recuse himself one more time.

That alone would make for a good story on how Fort Bend County voters continue to witness the fruits of their labors to go out of their way to elect the most unqualified candidate for county judge from either party to this seat.

That would be enough, but there’s more.

More detail has come out on the inundation of emails that Childers received from Fort Benders who wanted blood. Wanted to punish this teenager with an adult’s sentence. Apparently Judge Childers’ email address and phone number were made public to this group bent on vengeance, and they avalanched his office with advice and demands.

Childers became so concerned about this that he contacted Fort Bend DA Healey to inform him about it. Healey asked Childers to forward to his office information on these callers and emailers, which he did.

But get this, instead of using the list to contact these people to tell them that they were playing it fast and loose with the law by attempting to influence a judge, Dunn revealed that Healey used the list of emailers and callers to build a “Witness list”: people who would be called in to testify on whether the boy should be certified an adult for trial.

Is that not genius? Using the very people who were trying to influence Childers as witnesses in the case. I say Bravo, DA Healey, that shows moxie. That shows thinking out of the box.

That shows the state of justice in Fort Bend County.

But I think Healey can do better. Heck, why not use Childers’ caller and emailer list as a list of prospective jurors? What better way to ensure the desired outcome?

See? I can think out of the box, too!

KHOU Questions the Integrity of the Justice System in Fort Bend County

I have to admit I am not a huge fan of Houston, Texas’ KHOU’s news program. In particular, I don’t like it when they go after a private citizen with premature as well as flimsy evidence and destroy his life. But in this case, it is just the opposite.

KHOU aired a story that is well past due and seems to have solid basis.

I’m writing of their recent story on the racketeering and money laundering charges filed against eight Rosenberg roofers by their former boss and friend, Brett Holden, owner of Holden Roofing Company in Fort Bend County.

According to the story, Holden, with the help of his friend, Assistant District Attorney, Mike Elliott, filed criminal charges against his former employees, charging that they over-ordered roofing materials and withheld some of the fees that they charged their clients. Skimming, they say, money laundering, or such the like. Holden felt that they did this to have funds in order start up their own roofing company, something the 8 roofers hotly deny.

The story also mentions the fact that days earlier, Holden made a $1000 donation to the campaign of Annie Elliott, Mike Elliott’s wife. Something that defense attorney Don Bankston says is a conflict of interest: “It’s enough of a conflict of interest that [District Attorney] John Healey recognized it . . . “.

But here’s the thing that is new to me, at least. The Rosenberg Police Department do not appear to be very supportive of the DA’s office. Rosenberg Police Lieutenant said it this way:

“I think that, and this has been stated before, that the indictments were premature I think that additional work could have been done, questions could have been asked.”

Further investigations by a new prosecutor has revealed that there was no evidence of money laundering. Some of the evidence was not a theft as originally presented. And that the defendant was correct. Yet still, the indictments still stand and the DA’s office have not moved forward on this case after almost 2 years.

If all of this is true, then it is really disheartening. As someone who lives in Fort Bend County, it is disheartening to see that justice can be twisted and perverted to fulfill the needs of personal friends, indeed to cause harm to those whose only crime appears to be wanting to go into business for themselves.