Wouldn't It Be Nice?

Although Pat Lykos never actually made herself very familiar with an actual courtroom during her tenure as District Attorney, she does seem to be making herself quite comfortable by appearing in front of the Commissioners' Court these days.

Two weeks ago, there was an appearance before the Commissioners' Court that had something to do with the salary levels of some support staff within the Office.  There are some reports that at tomorrow's meeting, she may be making a similar appearance in regards to tinkering with prosecutorial salaries.  There is some confusion and controversy about what those appearances are designed to accomplish, so I'm not posting about them quite yet.

What is very clear on tomorrow's Commissioners' Court agenda is item 14(d), which is a request for money that reads:

$17,108 to reimburse Stephen Scott Morris for legal expenses incurred in connection with an investigation and court proceedings in the 185th District Court.

Morris, if you will recall, was one of two prosecutors and two court reporters who were ordered to appear in a Show Cause Hearing in front of Judge Susan Brown when it was alleged he and the others had unlawfully come into possession of some Grand Jury transcripts on a proceeding the Harris County District Attorney's Office had been recused from.  A contempt action was considered and ultimately dismissed against Morris, Carl Hobbs and the two court reporters.

During the pendency of the Show Cause proceedings, Morris was represented by Randy and Josh Shaffer.  Apparently their bill to Morris was so significant that Lykos is asking you, the taxpayer, to help him out on it.

Now, let's take a look at a couple of thoughts that may spring to mind here.  I suppose an initial reaction to this might be: "Well, if the case against him was ultimately dismissed, then he deserves to be reimbursed for any money he had to spend.  He's not guilty of anything, right?"


Well, that's a lovely thought, and wouldn't it be nice if every time a case was dismissed or a defendant was found not guilty, the government reimbursed the Accused for his or her attorney's fees?  It seems only right, doesn't it?

Yeah, that never happens.

I mean, ever.

So, it seems pretty disingenuous to me that you have an employee (and lawyer of the very Agency in charge of prosecuting people) wanting reimbursement when he finds himself prosecuted.  All of those other folks that get prosecuted and then get their cases dismissed (or are found not guilty) still have to pay their legal bills, but that type of thing is just unseemly if you are a prosecutor.

The absurdity of the idea that Lykos would even approach the Commissioners' Court and ask them for money to repay the expenses of a debacle that her Office created and perpetuated is astounding.    

Every day, hundreds of people get charged with crimes by the simple accepting of charges by an Assistant District Attorney sitting at intake when a cop call in.  As a result, they may lose their jobs, their homes, their spouses, and tons of money.  If Steve Morris is getting reimbursed for his fees, then every last person who pays for their own attorney should get the same benefit.

Do you think that Roger Clemens is going to be getting money back from the government to help him pay Rusty Hardin's bill?  He was found not guilty after all.

Of course not.

But Roger Clemens' tax dollars will certainly be helping pay for Steve Morris' legal fees if the Lykos Administration gets its way.

An Interesting Docket Entry

Anyone who wants to take a look at the 185th District Court's docket for Monday morning, November 7th might be surprised to see some familiar names on the list.  Most notably, The State of Texas vs. Carl Hobbs and The State of Texas vs. Steve Morris for Ex Parte Proceedings known as "Show Cause" Hearings.  Additionally, there are two Grand Jury court reporters also on the docket for the same reason.

What "Show Cause" hearings typically deal with are people (lawyers or otherwise) who have been or are possibly about to be held in Contempt of Court.

If you will remember, Steve Morris (the Harris County District Attorney's Office Bureau Chief for the Governmental Integrity Bureau), and Carl Hobbs (the DA's Office Division Chief over Grand Jury) were two of the three prosecutors who were kicked out of the 185th's Grand Jury two weeks ago under threat of arrest.

What exactly they are being called to the 185th on Monday for is something that I'm not sure about.  I've heard rumors from multiple people, but I'm not in a position to confirm or deny anything at the moment.

But I think that if you have two of the three prosecutors involved in the original 185th Grand Jury incident coupled with two Grand Jury court reporters, one might be able to read between the lines that the District Attorney's Office has clashed, yet again, with the Grand Jury.

Keep your eyes on this one, folks.

I think Monday is going to be an interesting day.

Pat Lykos' Star Chamber Rebels

On Wednesday, October 19th, the 14th Court of Appeals denied a Motion that Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos hopes to God that you don't pay attention to.  However, if you simply must look at it, I suppose you can get to the decision by clicking here.

The case is styled "In Re the State of Texas, Ex Rel. Patricia R. Lykos v. Hon. Susan Brown, Presiding Judge, 185th District Court of Texas" and is filed as "Request for Emergency Stay of Grand Jury Proceedings."

Sound interesting?  Well, it is.  Very interesting.

By reading the District Attorney's Office "request" and the supporting memorandums of HCDA General Counsel John Barnhill and Grand Jury Division Chief Carl Hobbs, a very clear picture of Lykos' attempt to extract vengeance against Amanda Culbertson emerges.

First, a little background.  As I talked about in this post earlier this month, the District Attorney's Office is very very upset with former-HPD technical supervisor, Amanda Culbertson. Ms. Culbertson used to be in charge of making sure that the Intoxilyzers over at HPD were all in credible, working order.

We don't want an Intoxilyzer showing your breath test results as a .14 when really you were a .07, do we?

Ms. Culbertson had some issues with the HPD Mobile "B.A.T." vans that had portable Intoxilyzers in them.  She thought the conditions the B.A.T. van Intoxilyzers were being stored in could affect their reliability.  She told her supervisors.  Her supervisors didn't care.  She quit HPD and went to work for Lone Star College, doing the same technical supervising, but now for County Law Enforcement Agencies.  Culbertson let people know that she left HPD because of her issues with the B.A.T. vans, and that put all of the District Attorney's DWI cases that involved those vans in serious jeopardy.

That made Pat Lykos angry.  She got the Commissioners Court to cancel the contract with Lone Star College so that the District Attorney's Office would never ever ever have to deal with that damn Amanda Culbertson again.

Did that satisfy Pat Lykos?  Nope.  She wants Amanda Culbertson indicted, too.  Amanda seems to have pissed off Lykos in a way that even I have failed to do in my three and a half years of blogging!

Which brings us to the 14th Court of Appeals filing.

Lykos is having her prosecutors present a case to the Grand Jury involving the B.A.T. vans and Amanda Culbertson.  That Grand Jury was created by the 185th District Court, Judge Susan Brown presiding.  Grand Jury proceedings are secret, so we don't know what exactly has been presented to the Grand Jury so far.

But on October 18th,  the Harris County District Attorney's Office vendetta against Amanda Culbertson blew up in their face.

On that day, prosecutors Carl Hobbs, Steve Morris (from Governmental Integrity), and John Barnhill all marched down to the 185th Grand Jury with the intent of calling defense attorney (and former-prosecutor) Brent Mayr as a witness before the grand jurors.  Brent Mayr, if you will recall from my earlier post, is the attorney who filed a Writ against the D.A.'s Office for withholding evidence of B.A.T. van reliability issues.

Upon arrival at the Grand Jury, however, Hobbs, Morris, and Barnhill were suddenly informed by the Grand Jury bailiffs that the Grand Jurors wanted them (the prosecutors) excluded from the room while Mayr was testifying.

In legal terms, the proper response to this is "Holy Catfish, Batman."

Prosecutors are always in the room with Grand Jurors when they are interviewing witnesses.  The only part they are excluded from in a Grand Jury is when the grand jurors deliberate.  The Grand Jurors excluding the prosecutors from the testimony is kind of the equivalent of the President being booted out of a Cabinet meeting.  It just doesn't happen.  I mean, ever.

Hobbs, Morris and Barnhill were incensed, obviously.  Hobbs and Barnhill quickly gathered up 1st Assistant Jim Leitner and stormed up to Judge Susan Brown's court to demand that she order the Grand Jury to let them back into the room while Mayr testified.

Judge Brown politely declined to order the Grand Jury to do anything.  Thus, the Motion (or Request) to the 14th Court of Appeals that would make the Court of Appeals order Judge Brown to order the Grand Jurors to let the prosecutors in the room.

To realize that significance of this, you have to read between the lines (but just a little bit).

The 185th Grand Jury has quite apparently decided that the Harris County District Attorney's Office's involvement into the crucifixion of Amanda Culbertson B.A.T. Van investigation is suspect, if not entirely improper.  They don't want them in the room while hearing from witnesses.

And that has got Hobbs, Barnhill, Leitner, and Pat Lykos scared.  Really scared.  So scared that they are scrambling very quickly to Judge Brown or the 14th Court of Appeals to demand that they get to jump in and stop whatever is going on.  Seriously.  Go read Barnhill and Hobbs' memorandums to the 14th Court of Appeals.

From Barnhill's:

Just prior to being escorted out of the grand jury room by the bailiff, I observed the bailiff in her office and overheard the bailiff speaking in a telephone conversation.  The bailiff said to the person on the phone, "They told me to arrest the DAs."  From that, I assumed that the grand jury had instructed the bailiffs to arrest Mr. Hobbs, Mr. Morris and me if we remained in the grand jury room while the grand jury was attempting to question the witness.

The implication being that the 185th Grand Jury may have started their own investigation, and it ain't into Amanda Culbertson.

It may just be into Pat Lykos and the Harris County District Attorney's Office.

Remember back in that last post when I said this may just be the tip of the iceberg?

I hate to say "I told you so," but . . .  Wait, no I don't.  I told you so.

Watch for this story to get a lot bigger in the days to come.

UPDATE:  Ted Oberg did a great piece on the Grand Jury Scandal.  Check it out by clicking here.