Key Point: JD Granger has a history of controversial political appointments at the behest of his mother, and Congresswoman Granger has not yet announced who she will endorse in the upcoming Republican primary between Governor Perry and U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. Perry appointing JD Granger to try and get mother Granger's endorsement is not only possible -- it is very, very likely. The question is: would it work?
Mr. Curry is likely among the longest-serving criminal district attorneys in Texas history, according to incomplete records from the Texas District & County Attorneys Association, spokeswoman Sarah Wolf said.
According to the Texas constitution, Mr. Curry’s replacement will be appointed by the governor to serve until the next election.
"The governor is going to have to think about his own upcoming race and what will help him in the long run," said Fort Worth attorney Greg Westfall, former president of the Tarrant County Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. "The fear is that it will be a political appointment, not a merit-based appointment."
Perry will "appoint a replacement upon completion of the process of fielding and interviewing potential replacements," said Allison Castle, spokeswoman for the governor.
One of the major and most likely names on the list is that of Republican JD Granger, son of Republican U.S. Congresswoman Kay Granger. JD Granger has a history of controversial political appointments at the behest of his mother, and Congresswoman Granger has not yet announced who she will endorse in the upcoming Republican primary between Governor Perry and U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. Perry appointing JD Granger to get mother Granger's endorsement is not only possible -- it is very, very likely.
The water board likes a close-knit familial group, as seen in its relationship with U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth, foremost proponent of the plan, and her son, J.D. Granger. Congresswoman Granger has led the drive to secure federal funding for the project. J.D. Granger is executive director of the Trinity River Vision Authority, which was created by the water board to oversee development of an 800-acre commercial and residential project. Some long-established businesses, particularly on the north side of town, will be uprooted by the plan.
Granger was appointed — without a search — to his $100,000 a-year job by the water district’s general manager, Jim Oliver. Following his boss’ example, Granger chose Eppstein without a formal search, and the authority’s board rubber-stamped the Eppstein contract.
Yes, JD Granger was hired without any official job search...and wait, Eppstein contract. That wouldn't be Bryan Eppstein, would it, the same Hutchison campaign spokesman that has worked directly with Congresswoman Kay Granger? Yes, yes it is. The blog Texas Watchdog ties it all together:
For example, two years ago, he helped elect Jim Lane and Marty Leonard to the Tarrant Regional Water District Board. Soon after, the board turned around and gave Eppstein two no-bid contracts for crafting a public relations strategy for its half-billion dollar plan to redirect the Trinity River as it meanders through downtown Fort Worth.
If only the back scratching stopped there. Richard Connor, who has skillfully dissected the board’s Trinity River plan for the Fort Worth Business Press, has unravelled the knot of ties Eppstein has to the deep-pocketed public agency. For example, Eppstein has worked on the political campaigns of Congresswoman and former Fort Worth Mayor Kay Granger, who just helped nail down federal funding for the project.
And guess where the congresswoman’s son, JD Granger, works? Try the Trinity River Vision Authority, which was conceived by the water board to oversee the massive public works project. As Connor reported, the boy Granger turned around and chose Eppstein for a PR gig without so much as a formal search.
So -- the million dollar question, of course -- is Perry going to appoint JD Granger to try and gain favor with Congresswoman Kay Granger? Is such an appointment enough to over-shadow the fact that Eppstein, who has worked with Congresswoman Granger in the past, is also a spokesman for Hutchison?
Or does Perry appoint someone else -- is the calculation that he won't get Congresswoman Granger's endorsement, and he would do better to appoint a different Republican that could do well in what will most certainly be a competitive race in 2010?
And do the people of Tarrant County even have a chance of a non-political appointment? Or are they stuck in scratch-my-back hell for another public official? We know that Eppstein got smacked down by the defeat of Republican State Senator Kim Brimer by Democrat State Senator Wendy Davis last November. Tarrant County would seem to be rebuking the status-quo back-scratching that Republicans like Granger (both mother and son) and Eppstein have been practicing all these years. Does that matter at all to Perry? (99% chance the answer is no, but still worth asking).
I don't know the inner-workings of the Republican primary race as well as someone who has lived and breathed Republican politics over the last few decades. I hope to gain insight from the Dean of the Texas blogosphere, Paul Burka, who is much more informed about the insides of the Republican Party than I am. Unless he's covering a Speaker's race, of course. (Ba-zing!)
What will Perry do? What's the calculus? Feel free to comment below...
As we wait around for results in about 4 hours, I figured we could get a little lighthearted and offer up the following photos for you to caption this afternoon.
Posted with author's permission.
by Barbara A. Taft, President -
People of the Heart
Gary Cobb, one of the perpetrators of the travesty launched against an innocent child, LaCresha Murray, in 1996, has been eliminated from the race for District Attorney. Rosemary Lehmberg, however, still holds a smoking gun. In the interest of changing the guard and securing perhaps a more just, merciful and law-abiding person in the office of Travis County District Attorney, I offer the following.
In 1996, Rosemary Lehmberg and Gary Cobb filed capital murder charges against an 11-year-old, with no physical, eye witness or forensic evidence physically linking either the home or anyone there with the numerous injuries suffered by a deceased two and a half year old. Lehmberg, Cobb and/or their subordinates assisted three seasoned APD detectives assigned to the case by advising them in circumventing the Magistrate Law, which demands that a child in police custody, before a statement is taken, be presented to a judge, who explains the ramifications of talking to the police and generally assigns an attorney. Based on advice received from the D.A.'s office, the detectives arranged for Child Protective Service (CPS) to leave this child alone in an empty building on CPS' campus to be "found" by the detectives, thereby eliminating any charge that she was in police custody and, in effect, waiving her rights under the Magistrate law.
According to the release, the announcement came as Sheriff Hamilton and law enforcement stood side by side in their support of Montford who has also been endorsed by every Austin and Travis County Public Safety Association.
"Montford is a trusted public servant who has been pro-active throughout her career working to see that justice prevails regardless of a person's political, personal or professional position is in this community," says Sheriff Hamilton. He points to Montford's experience in the courtroom prosecuting some of the county's most heinous crimes. "Ms. Montford is one of the toughest prosecutors you'll ever meet in a courtroom. As our District Attorney, Ms. Montford will be fair and impartial in the administration of justice throughout Travis County," he added.
Our favorite political junkie is reporting Rick Reed has endorsed Mindy Montford in the race to replace Ronnie Earle. Reed was the darling of the moratorium movement in Austin and could possibly lend some progressive credentials to Montford's campaign.
I was disturbed to see Mindy Montford had such strong support in BOR's online DA poll, because she is a stalking horse for the Republicans and the Capitol business lobby. I have been told by a number of lobbyists that her dad, ATT head lobbyist John Montford, is putting the squeeze on the business lobby to support her. How is she going to investigate political corruption at the Capitol if she is the candidate of the lobby, big business, and Craddick's friends Mike Toomey and Bill Messer?
Not only does she have obvious conflicts of interest, but she doesn't have the experience, knowledge or toughness to be the DA or to defend the Public Integrity Unit from the Legislature. Let's hope $250,00 in special interest funded TV ads for Mindy don't fool Travis County's Democrats.
Last night several different Austin Democratic clubs participated in a combined candidate forum. All four DA candidates were present for questions. Three of the candidates were asked a question related to the death penalty, with exception of Rosemary Lehmberg. So far no one has publicly supported a moratorium on seeking the death penalty in Travis County. Rick Reed seems to be the only candidate to question the death penalty and possibility of executing an innocent person. Videos are posted below.
Cherokee County, Texas has for decades gotten away with operating jurisprudence procedures completely opposite of the intent of the law. Attorneys from out of the region walk into a netherworld of lies and misdirection as soon as they set foot in the Rusk, TX courthouse. Cases and hearings on the docket are postponed on the day they were set months earlier for, all without a phone call to the other party. Unsigned indictments are issued and a fresh batch of defendants are never notified, as to create an arsenal of arrest warrants to spring on political rivals. Or to later drop the charges, all unbeknownst to the unsummoned defendant, in order to boost the county's crime rate. The fines and citations they issue never even get reported to the DPS in Austin. Instead, they pocket it.
Rusk, Texas court employees simultaneously supplement their incomes by serving as anonymous informants by monitoring and manipulating jury pools. They switch judges, state attorneys and charges, as they move freely from one courtroom to the next. A revolving door position for the Jacksonville, TX lawfirm that supplies Cherokee County's state attorneys. This is done to create the most confusing, convoluted scenario as possible for outsiders or as they see them as: interlopers. In other words, out of county travelers who make the mistake of driving through Cherokee County, Texas and get pulled over and cited on trumped up charges. Those out-of-towners who decide to fight the shakedown, face a morass of accusations in the hallways by courthouse personnel paid to perpetuate any lie they are told to repeat. Escorting defense attorneys to the wrong chambers, lying about the district attorney being sick, changing judges at the last minute and so on. Read the appeal of a probation violator from Cherokee County whose 2006 judgment was signed by a district judge who had nothing to do with the case:
http://bulk.resource.org/court...
This premeditation of judicial "errors" is done not for the sake of distracting outsiders from the stench of corruption these people have associated with for decades. But for the sake of intimidating defense attorneys and their clients into paying up and disappearing. And the bailiff coordinating cases in the past would've been none other than Constable Randall Thompson, federally convicted meth distributer. Thompson was facing his federal drug charges prior to January 2006 after he sold illegal narcotics to an undercover federal agent. However, Constable Thompson was allowed to continue to operate as the 369th District Court bailiff and issue citations in his precinct up until his federal indictment.
Beloved members of Cherokee County's notorious drug task force, slash narcotics division, slash semi-retired, he's-been-arrested-but-we-don't-know-where-he-is, slash decorated constables and patrolmen have made their way into the federal prison system in 2007. Of course, Cherokee County doesn't arrest their own cousins caught dealing drugs, raping women during traffic stops or stealing from the city coffers. It takes the US Attorney's office to round them up. That is just the standard practice of small town law enforcement and their citizens have to accept it if they choose to live in East Texas. Cherokee County doesn't cover up its corruption; it parades it around for everyone to bask in its glory. They admire it and relish the thought of nailing some more "city folk" and foolin' their lawyers with more lies.
If there is a law or standard practice to be broken, then the Cherokee County Texas district court is always finding a new one.
Most bizarre is the Cherokee County, TX grand jury system of empanelling piecemeal cohorts from an unknown jury pool, meeting for up to 6 months at a time. Then if a big city attorney has the audacity to challenge the "overwhelmed and underpaid" district attorney during the petit jury selection, Cherokee County, TX will summon every registered voter in the county to appear for voir dire.
This is designed to accomplish two things:
1. Smear the defendant in front of the entire voting populace for months, where the district attorney can argue his case without rebuttal; and
2. Drag the case out indefinitely so opposing counsel cannot file any motions of discovery or federal lawsuits.
All the while, officers of the court openly discuss the case with anyone who'll listen. Or as Cherokee County's district attorney Elmer Beckworth calls it "an open policy." Of course everyone in the Rusk, TX courthouse will work as one tight little unit, gleefully obstructing, subverting and deflecting the entire process. Trumping charges up to get misdemeanors into the district court, or citing felony charges in the County Court at Law. Whatever it takes to collectively violate the United States constitution by creating a hodgepodge of allegations, hoping one will fit one Texas legal precedent. If it doesn't, they'll make it up as they go along, claiming "to be the first to discover the flaw in the Texas constitution."
Cherokee County district judges allow the district attorney's office to try cases based upon 'the preponderance of the evidence,' as if in a civil trial instead of 'beyond a shadow of the doubt.' Therefore the Cherokee County district attorney really does not have to prove anything at trial. Timelines need not be established and hearsay is allowed during most Cherokee County Texas court cases. Trial attorneys are warned in pre-conference not to speak of exculpatory evidence that might make for grounds for dismissal or for an embarrassing appellate ruling. And you can bet the court reporter (married to the sheriff) misses all the relevant details when a deputy lies on the stand. Arbitrary and capricious, you say? No, a deliberate and systemic method of covering up the stench from the bench.
Court appointed attorneys' meager paychecks depend on pleasing the Cherokee County district court, therefore representation is derelict and deliberately incompetent. They even have appointed alcoholic criminal attorneys who themselves were facing DUI charges and Injury with a Motor Vehicle suits within the county. Sending them to indigent clients for a quick resolution and defending the drunken attorney's behavior until the lawyer literally drinks himself to death.
And if one of the members in their Cult of Confession gets caught with their hand in the taxpayer cookie jar, they collectively circle the wagons and wait it out.
This is why a City of Rusk, TX employee decided to embezzle $150,000 in a town of less than 5000 people. They knew they could get away with it. Rusk, Texas is the county seat of Cherokee County.
Case in point: a total of $150,000 has been stolen from the city of Rusk, TX water department over the last few years. A suspected city employee was terminated in March 2007 and the Texas Rangers called in to audit the city government treasury. Several Cherokee County grand juries have convened behind closed doors in 2007, however no indictment has been levied regarding the theft. Excuses in the local Cherokee County newspapers have been printed that perhaps a conflict of interest was present with the suspect and members of the district attorney's handpicked grand jury. In other words, the City of Rusk, TX employee fired in March has had relatives seated on their behalf for every grand jury sworn in for the year of 2007.
The fact is if the Cherokee County district attorney wanted to indict the suspect, then the Sheriff's Department would have arrested their buddy working at the water department.
The City of Rusk, TX with a population of 5000 citizens has a tiny operating budget, even less for the city's water department. $150,000 is a lot of money to come up missing for a town that small. But because the terminated employee is related to everybody working in the city hall and courthouse, the case will be drug out forever. Deals have to be made when co-workers are caught stealing and the district attorney is forced to prosecute one of their own. The fact is theft of public funds by elected officials has been going on in Cherokee County, TX for decades.
Insurance fraud, murder, drug dealing, rape and other horrors by its law enforcement will continue in the center of the East Texas 'Nowhere Land,' as long the Attorney General's office allows Cherokee County to make up its own legal precedents and modus operandi with a total disregard of the Law.
These men and women of the district court, grand jury panels and peace officers took an oath to uphold the institutions of the great state of Texas, not to lie, cheat and steal their way out of the poorhouse.
My name is Bill Aleshire. I write to encourage those who oppose the death penalty, as I do, to withhold public support or contributions for any candidate for District Attorney who does not pledge to refrain from use of the death penalty. Regardles of which candidate you end up voting for, death penalty opponents should be heard loud and clear in this Democratic Primary election by contacting the candidates and letting them know you oppose the death penalty.
This is a unique opportunity because the selection of the next District Attorney is practically confined to the Democratic Primary since there is no Republican candidate. Although the death penalty maintains broad support statewide, Democratic voters in Travis County can elect a D.A. who would professionally and competently enforce the law without using the death penalty.
The death penalty is not mandatory. The D.A. decides whether to seek the death penalty or not. Death penalty opponents have been practically beaten into submissive silence by the notion that stopping this inhumane practice is not politically feasible. Instead of debating an end to the death penalty, it has shifted to debating--can you believe it?--whether the death penalty should be administered "humanely." That's the same Orwellian nonsense as making bombs "smart."
Don't give up. The Democratic Primary voters could make a difference in how the next D.A. handles this issue. The criminal justice system, even in this allegedly progressive community, is not perfect, and innocent people can be convicted, particularly if their ultimate fate on appeal is dependent on the likes of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals who would close their doors rather than give a death-row inmate 15 minutes extra to file an appeal.
If you oppose the death penalty, please don't publicly support a D.A. candidate who will use the power of that office to continue this vengeful, barbaric practice.
Jeanette Popp spoke at a press conference on the plaza of the Blackwell/Thurman Criminal Justice Center in Austin on Saturday, January 12. Popp urged the candidates for Travis County District Attorney to impose a moratorium on the death penalty in Travis County by not seeking the death penalty in any capital trials and instead using life without parole as an alternative to the death penalty. The above video was recorded after the press conference.
Jeanette Popp's daughter Nancy DePriest was murdered in Austin in 1988.
March 4, 2008, the day of the primary in Travis County, would have been Nancy's 40th birthday.
Jeanette became intimately familiar with the many flaws of the Texas criminal justice system after two innocent men, Chris Ochoa and Richard Danziger, were wrongfully convicted of her daughter's murder and spent 12 years in prison. They were exonerated and released in 2001. The City of Austin settled separate lawsuits with Danziger and Ochoa for $9 million and $5.3 million respectively in 2003. Danziger also settled with Travis County for $950,000. The actual killer, Achim Marino, was convicted in October 2002.
"The death penalty system in Texas is broken. The next DA in Travis County should reflect how the Travis County community's views on the death penalty have evolved in recent years and pledge that for now the death penalty is off the table within Travis County", said Scott Cobb of Texas Moratorium Network. "If we want to slow down the number of executions in Texas and reduce the risk of executing an innocent person, we need to elect a district attorney who will pledge to impose a moratorium on seeking new death sentences and a moratorium on setting execution dates for cases with existing death sentences. Certainly a DA candidate in Travis County who makes such a pledge will find a rich reward of votes in the Democratic primary", said Cobb.
For more information visit TMNPAC.org and contribute online through ACTBLUE.
