Among the tales of woe up here on the prairie is a scandalous saga of avarice and sloth. Yes, I'm talking about our constables. In one such case, I have a constable who, six months into his term of office, finds out his brother is in jail, charged by my colleagues at the district attorney's office with aggravated robbery. Being the ever-dutiful peace officer, he talks to his brother, finds out that his brother was just rolling a john who had not paid one of the brother's female "business associates," and sets out to exonerate his wrongfully-accused sibling. You may ask, how? He goes to the victim/complaining witness, tells the victim that he is a constable and has evidence which will show the victim to be the lying scallywag that he is, that the victim could go to prison for 10 years for lying, and that he had best reconsider his testimony or our champion the constable would be unable to "protect him." This happens twice. The DA's office complains to us, but declines to indict. Do any of you smarter types see a problem here?

Without commenting on the particular facts of your case, I would note that the Texas Penal Code does not make it easy to prosecute a person for wrongfully trying to influence a change in the testimony of a witness.

For tampering with a witness, you have to prove that the defendant did so by offering some sort of benefit. For obstruction and retaliation, the defendant has to make some sort of threat. "You better not testify" is hard to prosecute.

The feds have a much broader obstruction of justice law that doesn't depend so much on benefits or threats.

I agree. I think that's why the DA declined to indict. From our perspective, we're looking at it as a question of whether this is the kind of guy we want strutting around with a gun and arrest power on our county's ticket. I suppose the broader issue is this: Is there a problem with a peace officer investigating a case in which his brother is the defendant, and interceding on his brother's behalf in that investigation?

Only in Hollywood is that sort of conflict of interest seen as appropriate. Every cop movie ever made involved some officer conducting an investigation he was ordered to avoid. The real world, of course, calls for a little more objectivity.

Thank you for taking the time to give me some input. The rest of the story concerning our impetuous protagonist is that he didn't turn a tap during his first year in office (2001)... other than to jack up the complaining witness in his brother's felony case, of course. Having had enough of being sued for more money by people who do nothing, and fearing what else our friend might do with his badge and his gun when left to his own devices, we filed a removal action (in November of 2001). Does anyone think we jumped the gun or overreacted?

From all the shows I have seen witness intimidation is far easier to prove than you guys have led me to believe.

Sounds like you did right to me! Bythe way - we won our constable suit in federal district court and are waiting on a ruling from the 5th Circuit...

Great job. We, too, were able to obtain a holding from our Court of Appeals that a constable's suit for back pay is barred by sovereign immunity. Consequently, unless there are any front pay issues to be resolved (our suit involved a former constable), the mandamus (which they always wield as their Vondy-generated Excalibur) is barred as useless. The former constable swears he's taking the case to the Supreme Court of Texas. I hope he's right.