It just seemed like there had to be some kernel of truth to the whole bribery thing, some questionable if not illegal activity that allowed the Collin County DAs office to prosecute four innocent people, convict three of them, and force the fourth to plead guilty. During Wootens trial, Judge Russell refused to admit any evidence about the political motivations underlying the case: neither the communications between Sandoval and the DAs office that started the whole thing nor the half-dozen grand juries it took to get an indictment. Then someone anonymously placed a copy of an email from First Assistant DA Greg Davis to Roach in her mailbox. Justice in Collin County was hard to come by if you werent part of the club. These are seasoned, experienced former federal prosecutors. Steve Spencer was set for trial in December 2012. Stacy disagrees. Case in point: while Milner was convening multiple grand juries to investigate Wooten, he was also convening multiple grand juries to investigate Judge Greg Willis, who, at the time, was campaigning to be the next Collin County DA. She waives her right to appeal. Stacy had also appeared before her briefly after she had sued Jennifer for trying to garnish her personal investment accounts in Daves custody case, and the lawsuit had been subsequently transferred to the 380th because it was related. Especially if you dont even own a dog. Palmer wasnt able to convince the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to let him go after all of the named parties, however. Judge of the 380th | 2009 2011, Harry White But I am skeptical. Spencer pled guilty. Neither was interested. Part of the problem, Schulte says, is that Milner really just wanted to be a police officer. It has been said that Montgomery County, Texas is the most corrupt county in the state. The laws regarding selecting grand juries have changed. Dad used to say if you dig a dry hole, that gives you more information of where to drill next time. Although he told the Carys about Wooten at some point, Spencer says he also told them he didnt want them involved in her campaign. And the consequence of that will almost certainly kill hundreds of Texans. Dave was paroled at the end of 2014, after serving 19 months and 10 days. Second, qualified judges routinely fall victim to partisan sweeps. Its a battle scar. Even though Caton was disparaged as a divorce, the race ended up being relatively close. Corrupt Police Corruption scandals have emerged in most of the 14 border counties between Brownsville and El Paso. The court then went one step further. Collin County District Attorney | 2011 present, Greg Abbott The Most Lawless County in Texas Suzanne Wooten did the impossible and became the first candidate to defeat a sitting judge in Collin County. Texas Crime Statistics. A recent poll on a parental rights website had identified some of the worst judges in the country. For 162 years, district court judges had gotten their benches either by gubernatorial appointment when a court opened up due to retirement or death, or by election (often uncontested) when a new court was created. In the following days, the DAs office would begin to use the existing grand jury to start issuing subpoenas for records related to Wooten. On the appellate and district courts alone, the Texas Judiciary in the last election lost seven centuries of judicial experience at a single stroke.. Spencer is a remarkably talented individual who knows more about politics than probably anybody in this room will ever know, Dave would later tell a grand jury. The most corrupt police force in Texas Written by Alan Bean In the next segment of this series, we will be looking at Shaun Cooks' experience with the criminal justice system in his home town of Hearne, Texas. In 07, we had sold our oil company, kept some royalty, and everybody was flush, she says. On March 25, 2015, a different trio of judges on the Court of Appeals for the Fifth District of Texas came to a different result in Daves case. I was at a judicial conference in San Francisco when they indicted me, Wooten says. That cant be right. It just takes one jilted man and a few loyal henchmen to put a woman back in her permitted place. He became passionate about criminal justice reform and started working with Doug Deason and his eponymous criminal justice reform center at SMU. Considering that Wooten wasnt able to practice law and had to step down from the bench after her indictment in 2010 until the State Bar of Texas reinstated her license in 2017; and considering that she had again attempted to run for an open seat in 2020 but the Collin County Republican Party deemed her ineligible, claiming she hadnt been a practicing attorney for the four years prior, contrary to the State Bars retroactive reinstatement orderit wasnt nearly enough. (Not to be confused with his son, Judge John Roach Jr., who currently presides over the 296th District Court in Collin County. After Wooten was elected, a hearing in the case was scheduled in her courtroom, but she recused herself as soon as she realized that several of the lawyers involved were from her old firm or had helped on her campaign. Wooten had considered running as an independent, because she felt judicial races shouldnt be partisan and party affiliation shouldnt make a difference. This story originally appeared in the October issue of D Magazine. Shell just let anybody off.. By law, each county in the state must be served by at least one, which, for small rural counties, can be shared. But the matter had ultimately been dropped. The FBI in San Antonio also has seen a sharp increase in . I mean, he found us a lobbyist who is a great lobbyist. There is no dispute that Wooten, for her part, paid every bill she received from Spencer. From 2015 to 2020, the Texas Rangers completed more than 560 public corruption case investigations, but only 67 of those cases have been prosecuted, according to DPS data analyzed by the. She said, Do you want to be right or do you want to be free? Wooten knew that if she were sentenced to more than 10 years, she would not be entitled to an appeal bond; she would go straight to prison without seeing her kids. Or a six-figure settlement. A fourth of trial judgesdistrict, county, and justices of the peaceare new. Her first cases are still fixed in her memory. Sandoval and Roach have retired. Read the full results below, with more details here: Rank State Score 51 North Dakota 0% 50 Wyoming 12% 49 Idaho 16% 48 Arizona 28% 47 Michigan 28% 46 Indiana 28% 45 Utah 31% 44 South Dakota 34% 43. This one was a plea to prison officials to let his wife bring his wedding ring to prison and to let him wear it. Terms run for four years, and there are no term limits. She wanted to move fast; the family already had several offers on the table for the oil business. Instead, the evidence mainly focused on the timing of payments made by the Carys to Spencer and the timing of bills sent by Spencer to Wooten. Judge Charles Sandoval resembled John Lithgow playing Winston Churchill in The Crown, only with more hair. Where are these places you wonder? Now that being said, when I got arrested and bonded out, in the next year, my business tripled, Walpole says. Stacy says she hasnt seen them since. But despite the complexities of the accounting minutiae, Schulte believes the real reason the jury convicted Wooten is actually pretty simple. He knew unseating a Democratic judge in Texas wouldnt get attention; he needed to challenge a Republican. I was elected president of the local defense bar. Civil penalties can be assessed for violations of up to three times the amount of the political contributions accepted in violation of the section. He didnt want anything to jeopardize Wooten (who knew nothing about his dealings with the Carys). Hes in Dallas on business. From 2015 to 2020, the Texas Rangers completed more than 560 public corruption case investigations, but only 67 of those cases have been prosecuted, according to DPS data analyzed by . Direct evidence proving that a payment to a judge is a bribe and not a campaign contribution is, understandably, difficult to establish. No, Dave replied. How did you all fuck this up and continue to prosecute her? The reason I laughed was theres not a district judge in the world thats not going to quash this indictment.. White had been participating with Milner in the grand jury investigations since at least December 2008, and Abbott had been briefed on the progress of the case. Most try both criminal and civil cases, but in larger counties, such as Dallas, individual courts may specialize in civil, criminal, juvenile, or family law. But he was already working regularly with a local television station as a legal analyst. Just the other day, Stacy found a tissue-thin piece of paper with a note from him in faint prison pencil. Wooten couldnt appeal. Enjoy!!! She was friends with Peter Schulte, a local criminal defense attorney and former cop, so she gave him a call. Dave also hired Spencer. One of the grand jurors for the Wooten and Willis cases was the treasurer for the Collin County Republican Party. From January to March 2008, she paid him a total of $150,000: $50,000 on January 4, $25,000 on January 30, $25,000 on February 14, $25,000 on February 26, $10,000 on March 7, and $15,000 on March 14. Im like, Bribery? 217 likes. In 2007, Wooten was the managing partner of the McKinney branch of Collins & Basinger, a boutique Dallas law firm. You have to mean to steal. So I took a flight a day early and came back, because I have children and a family. Christopher Milner was practicing criminal defense law in Rockwall, but no one has heard from him for a while. The final tally was 19,700 to 14,734, 57 percent to 43 percent. But since the State Commission on Judicial Conduct never removed her, she technically remained the elected judge on the 380th until the end of December 2012. She figured it was just petty payback from a sore loser, not the harbinger of a scorched-earth campaign to unseat her. To be eligible to run for a district court judge seat, you must be a citizen of the United States and Texas, be aged 25 to 74, be a resident of the district for two years, and be a practicing lawyer or judge for a total of at least four years. As for White and Abbott, he believed, they were involved from the very start. Then there was the older man whod stolen a bottle of $20 shampoo but was charged by prosecutors with felony theft because it was his third offense. He had been wanting to move out there for 20 years, and when the pandemic hit, he finally did. One-third of all District Court judges in Texas have been appointed, not elected. He had mental health and addiction issues. A Dallas federal jury will soon decide the matter - at least in the case of local developer Ruel Hamilton, who is accused of bribing two former Dallas City Council members. For the State to prove its case under the general bribery statute, the appellate court said, it had to prove that Stacys payment was not a political contribution. Sometimes Im the guy who knows the guy.. Now, he says, laughing, Im the faggot from Colorado.. I had started to think Spencer must be some sort of Keyser Sze, a con man hiding in plain sight. Willis, who had taken her bench at the same time Wooten had, was presumably also a target because her husband, Judge Greg Willis, was planning to run for Roachs job as DA. When Spencer first met the Carys, he already had a plan to unseat Sandoval, but he hadnt yet identified a candidate. The DAO has acted with seeming disregard for the personal, emotional, and financial costs to the individuals concerned., They also pointed out that Roach had been absent for at least one-third of the days normally worked by others in the courthouse, and that he was present at the seating of the grand jury and declined, in open court, to challenge any member of it as unfit.. Their surprise was understandable. Nearly a year later, while a fourth grand jury was investigating Wooten, Schulte, her lawyer, was finally able to arrange a meeting with Milner to try to find out what was going on. So it didnt matter if you were a victim of domestic violence diving out a window and running for your life, or if you were a gay attorney doing your job, or if you were a woman campaigning to be judge, or even if you were a wealthy, White, Republican man proclaiming your innocence. As for Sandoval, he was running against Judge Betty Caton for the newly created 380th seat. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. If youre doing something to save your own life, you dont have the intent to steal. Or even his wife. Henderson. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. It had numerous replies. His eponymously punny company, Spen-Off Strategies, touted itself as offering comprehensive and tailored strategies for operations, marketing, finance, technology, government relations, regulatory compliance and much more, with a global network of experts as support. Since the first district court was established in Collin County in 1846, no one had challenged an incumbent judge, whether in a primary or general election. Thats what became known as the Special Crimes Unit. Wooten became alarmed. They filed a report stating that the Collin County DAs office was misusing the grand jury to undertake politically motivated investigations. Friends in the legal community told her she should wait. Corruption Index Score: 11.44 And for the place where people prefer a slower-paced lifestyle, This Is the Laziest State in America. 15. And Milner and White, their henchmen, have moved on to private practice. The law also mandates public disclosure of contributors and the amounts contributed. It generally requires a video, or a written letter or text, or a wiretapped phone conversation. Wooten assured Spencer thatbetween her generous law firm salary, savings, and a $50,000 line of creditshe had sufficient funds at her disposal to cover anything she couldnt raise. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison probated and 30 days in jail. But when her first financial report was due in mid-January, the Secretary of States office told her they didnt have her listed as a candidate. After analyzing federal corruption convictions, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review bestowed a new title on Edinburg: the dirtiest town, in the most crooked county, in the most bribable state. Also: Texas is an insanely terrible place to do business: It has corrupt public officials law-enforcement officers on the cartel dime, judges selling verdicts, members of a drug task force. He didnt understand that he couldnt just indict people to get them to do what he wanted them to do.. After all, shes the one who wrote the checks. When I catch him on the phone in March, he says they just had a big snowstorm and its pretty outside, the fresh powder blanketing his new home. But when it deals with allegations of political contributionsand political contributions is a broad termany money associated with a campaign must be done under section 36.02(a)(4) [of the Texas Penal Code], which requires the prosecution to show direct evidence of an express agreement. 402n District Judge Brad McCampbell-A man who got his job only because the people of Wood County were fed up with the CORRUPTION of his predecessor former District Judge Jeff Fletcher, so they gave him a chance by electing him to replace Fletcher and he has done nothing but slap those citizens in the face at every chance he gets by doing whatever immoral deed Brandon Baade tells him to do. The prayer for relief included damages for mental anguish, lost wages, and punitive damages. Assistant Attorney General | 2003 2015, Peter Schulte ! 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