Tiffany Walters, corrections officer who leaked the ‘hold harmless’ agreement in exchange for Twin Peaks bail reduction 2 years ago…
DON’T ELECT A CLOWN IF YOU’RE NOT EXPECTING A CIRCUS – Clint Broden, Attorney at Law
Austin – Passing mile stones reminds one that all roads lead to Rome, and the reminiscence thereof clarifies the adage that the first will be last; the last will come first.
And so, shortly before midnight on May 17, 2017, the expiration of the deadline to file federal civil complaints under civil rights violations, the attorneys who have filed the most suits against the tyrants who served as stage managers for the cassus belli in the opening skirmish of Waco’s war on freedom for those with the pure dee temerity to rise up in the stirrups of their iron steeds and demand a toe hold in the councils of power announced their last filing just minutes before their last chance to toe the mark on behalf of the defendant who has demanded longer and more loudly than any other his day in court.
Lest we forget, the Confederation of Clubs and Independents meeting scheduled for 1 p.m. on May 17, 2015 at Twin Peaks Restaurant, Waco, was a gathering of motorcycle enthusiasts hell bent on 1) knowing what the hell was going on in the Legislature then in session, and 2) exercising their God given right freely assemble to petition the government for redress of grievances, as provided by the U.S. and Texas Constitutions.
Tell it like t’is.
“The first civil rights lawsuit was filed by Matthew Clendennen on May 29, 2015. I just got back from Don Tittle’s office where we filed what is likely the last one at 10:45 pm for Cody Ledbetter…By my count, 131 plaintiffs filed civil rights lawsuits arising out of Twin Peaks. Don Tittle filed 118 of those complaints and I am co-counsel with him on 49 of those 118.” wrote Clint Broden on his Facebook page, an announcement forwarded to motorcycle enthusiasts throughout the area.
Folks will remember Don Tittle as the attorney who took McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara to the wood shed in the early days of his administration under the same civil rights authority afforded by the Title of the same U.S. Code, a law that hit the books during Reconstruction times to guarantee certain parties politically disenfranchised their basic human rights as guaranteed by the Constitution.
McNamara had dismissed some deputies as at-will employees and reduced the responsibilities and pay of others because they helped his rival in the primary race of 2012 put up signs and electioneered against his candidacy.
None of those causes are really and truly illlegal, nor is there legal culpability on the part of any man who erects signs, distributes literature, freely speaks his mind or of his political preferences – though it may be – ah – inexpedient and not at all prudent to talk about his religion in public, and never in a Texas beer joint.
At will employment means that with each re-election of a public official, his employees either write a letter of resignation, which is filed away undated, or it is understood that if the office holder has nothing for them, he is perfectly within his rights to relieve them of all their responsibilities to his office.
Friend McNamara misunderstood and the plaintiffs represented collected several million in damages, in some cases kept their jobs, and in others went on to bigger and better things.
Selah.
And so, as it were, Ledbetter, whose broken arm was in a cast as he watched the events of the “melee” at Twin Peaks unfold and watched in horror as his father’s life blood spilled onto the sidewalk through a quarter-inch bullet hole, has offered the defense through his attorneys, in association with Looney & Conrad of Hempstead, that he actually took no part in the ultra-violent fracas and took no part in anything resembling organized criminal activity, as charged in an identical instrument with those of 177 others arrested that day, their bail amount set at $1 million in order to “send a message.”
He merely avoided the same or similar fate as suffered by his father by obeying police instructions, gave a witness statement clad in zip ties after laying upon the floor of and impromptu prison fashioned from the Waco Convention Center, and the rest is history.
The Honorable 19th Criminal District Court Judge Ralph T. Strother gave him a trial date at one point, then withdrew the order without informing his counsel.
Why the delay?
The Criminal District Attorney Abel Reyna insisted through ex parte communication with the Court that he be given more time to gather and disseminate exculpatory information to the defendants, a delay that has now extended past the two year deadline for filing a civil rights action in federal court.
The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees, among other things, a speedy trial.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed an appeal of the Waco 10th District Court of Appeals ordering a speedy trial date. Ledbetter’s attorney, Paul Looney, ventured the opinion that “having viewed no inculpatory evidence, we don’t really care about exculpatory evidence.”
That is one of the main points of the civil rights suits filed by Twin Peaks defendants in the U.S. District Court at Austin.
There is no real evidence to support the allegation, that the defendants did, indeed, engage in organized criminal activity.
It is simply and totally legal for a man and his family to attend a political meeting in order to get information about what is happening at the Legislature’s latest session. It is illegal for a man to jerk out his six shooter in a beer joint and get ignert with the trigger.
But, then, you see, Ledbetter is not so charged, and what’s more, the charge would be either murder, capital murder, aggravated assault, mayhem, disorderly conduct, negligent homicide, or all the other stuff these hooligans and philistines think it’s so cute to persuade defendants to accept as a charge in a so-called plea bargain. Such a deal. It’s not what really happened, and it never really happened, anyway, because the person accepting the “bargain” simply didn’t do it.
In some cases, no one did it because it never really happened. Don’t dare laugh. There’s a law against that, too, at least while court is in session.
And that is why what is written is so all-fired important in this world.
Period.
Paragraph.
Many more constitutional arguments accompany Cody Ledbetter’s protest of the violation of his civil rights by the FBI, the Texas Department of Public Safety, The Waco Chief of Police, the arresting officers, and they make interesting reading in the lawsuits filed, all of which center on the same arguments since they complain of the same abuses of the civil rights guaranteed by the Constitution and its Bill of Rights.