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| District Attorney Abel Reyna in court appearance at murder trial |
Waco
– With a jail bunk-to-inmate ratio that is overbuilt by huge
margins – there are more than 300 slots that have been left vacant
at the downtown Courthouse Annex Jail for nearly 3 years - the local
defense bar and the DA's office are playing a vicious game of blame.
Meanwhile,
the bean counters predict the budget for jailing prisoners in the
McLennan County Jail will eventually exceed its boundaries by about
$2.6 million before the fiscal year ends.
The
debate, which has maintained a steady boil for the past three years,
turned ugly, its rhetoric spilling over into the Commissioners Court
at the behest of a fiscally conservative advocate of penny pinching,
Commissioner Kelly Snell.
He
invited members of the court-appointed defense bar to address the
Court with their concerns about certain policies laid down by DA Abel
Reyna when he took office in January, 2011.
Mr.
Reyna inherited a 1,200-case backlog from former DA John Segrest, and
began clearing it by doubling Grand Jury sessions and disallowing
previous practices such as letting the lawyers know the names on the
indictments before arrest warrants are served, sneaking a peek at
investigators' work product prior to indictments without filing
pre-trial discovery motions, and allowing accused felony offenders to cop a
plea for anything less than 15 years behind penitentiary bars.
“I
know the games they play,” he told the Court in a hot rejoinder to
his interlocutors' criticisms.
He
campaigned on the notion that indicting only about half of the cases
made by cops and charged by magistrates is “...nothing more than a
coin flip” - a pudding, a fake, a lick, and a promise.
Three
years later, he's still going strong, and he's got their attention.
Cops,
crooks, lawyers and judges dance to his tune, and it's a hot old town
for offenders and ham and egging barristers when his prosecutors turn
the screws and say, “We'll see you in court.”
The
following is an edited audio recording gleaned from the public
records of the Commissioners Court meeting this past Tuesday.Such
luminaries as Jonathan Sibley, Robert Callahan, and Josh Tetens
ripped into the status quo – which, as any knowledgeable observer
can tell you, is merely Latin for “The mess we done got ourselves
into now,” according to the sworn testimony of a forgotten Texas
Ranger.
DA
Abel Reyna denies allegations, defies allegators...
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