That's weird about his brother disappearing the same way. Daddy should have taught those boys how to swim.
On a complete tangent, I am reminded of the time a prosecutor disappeared in the middle of an Agg Sex case in an un-named county 20 miles west of Midland. Turns out, he claimed sudden illness that apparently affected his telephone, too. Stories circulating later indicated he had been seen at Baby Dolls (a late night establishment that needs no further description) until 4:00 a.m.
Greta Van Susteren ran a special on his disappearance last night. Seems he was well liked in the community- had been the DA for years. During her show they interviewed a few ex-prosecutors who spoke of the dangers of the job. I don't know how this will turn out, but he is a brother in arms and I hope they find him well.
Posts: 38 | Location: Henderson County | Registered: July 19, 2004
In response to Randal's query, It seems the tolerance of folks to deal with situations(even minor things) that don't go their way is eroding at an alarming rate....As an example, just this morning, I had a confrontation in the hallway outside the courtroom with the husband of a woman who was given a deferred sentence for selling tobacco to a minor. She was going to lose her job if she was convicted but insisted on pleading not guilty.....with permission and encouragement from the court at the pretrial hearing I told her that we had her on tape with an undercover etc.... She elected to pay the fees and be done with it. What followed was a hateful rant about manufactured evidence and dishonest prosecutors. This escalation occured in the hallway with just me and a 275lb. raging bull with no bailiff in the courthouse much less the hallway. He was so angy he was shaking and the veins in his eyes popping out etc.... Those are the type incidents I see more frequently and they typically occur in the class C cases or protective order situations. Additionally, we just pled several defendants who made theats against jurors in a recent felony trial and stated they were going to blow-up the courthouse(both women). The appropriate level of civility and respect is gone and it's just a matter of time before these type folks take it too far once again.
I have noticed that too. I have been prosecuting longer than I care to remember but the tolerance level seems to have disappeared. The actuel danger level seems to have increased.
We just prosecuted a woman for shoving two female jurors on the stairwell as they left court. They had just sentenced her husband to 10 years for Injury to a Child. Her jury gave her 8 years - she had no record.
Mike, can't believe no bailiff? Your sandbox is a lot larger than ours, but we have a bailiff at all county court docket calls, and we even have a bailiff at JP court sessions.
We may well have to start requesting a bailiff at JP pretrials even though it seems absurd. I like to think I can handle myself against any unarmed person, but, with no metal detectors, I am beginning to worry a little. the S.O. is short-staffed and it seems trivial to call them for such matters. As I have said before, I often talk to many Defendants in my office on court days with no security....may have to rethink that too. Seems like I'm not doing my job correctly if I don't tick-off at least 1-2 people a week these days.(I used to be so easy to get along with....maybe I'm the one with the short temper!)
If you've got constables that are getting paid in beautiful Scurry County, they should be lending a hand at JP proceedings. See Tex. Loc. Gov't Code sec. 86.021(e).
Posts: 1233 | Location: Amarillo, Texas, USA | Registered: March 15, 2001
I can't believe you mentioned the "C" word on this forum. At this time, we don't have any and would like to keep it that way. Hard to get qualified folks to run for $2500.00 a year.
