{"id":180023,"date":"2017-08-04T18:47:00","date_gmt":"2017-08-04T23:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/08\/04\/live-in-obedient-fear-citizen-28\/"},"modified":"2017-08-04T18:47:00","modified_gmt":"2017-08-04T23:47:00","slug":"live-in-obedient-fear-citizen-28","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/08\/04\/live-in-obedient-fear-citizen-28\/","title":{"rendered":"Live in Obedient Fear, Citizen!"},"content":{"rendered":"
It now seems taht some prosecutors are making professional and physical threats against defense counsel for offering a a vigorous defense of their clients<\/a>:<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n


\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

In February, San Antonio District Attorney Nico LaHood allegedly did just that. LaHood was prosecuting<\/a> Miguel Martinez, who stood accused<\/a> of shooting a graduate student named Laura Carter in the head during a drug deal gone bad. Martinez\u2019s trial derailed soon after it began. On the second day, the government disclosed that its star witness, who was also a possible suspect in the killing, had once had a sexual encounter with a prosecutor in the DA\u2019s office. The defense argued that the relationship gave the witness a motive to help the government and gave the government a reason not to investigate or charge the witness. The defense accused prosecutors of violating their constitutional duty by failing to disclose that information before trial. The defense lawyers asked for a mistrial and indicated they may ask the judge to bar further prosecution. <\/span><\/p>\n

According to defense pleadings, LaHood threatened to shut down the opposing counsels\u2019 practice during a meeting in the judge\u2019s chambers. He allegedly said he would \u201cgo to the media and do whatever it took\u201d and that he did \u201cnot care what happened to him.\u201d Their client would also be at risk, LaHood allegedly said, because he would be \u201cbetter prepared for trial the next time\u201d and he would \u201cpick a better jury.\u201d The defense lawyers, Christian Henricksen and Joe Gonzalez, asked for a mistrial. Trial Judge Lori Valenzuela granted their motion.<\/span>
In March, the defense moved to bar future prosecution. At a hearing the following month, LaHood denied under oath that he\u2019d threatened the lawyers\u2019 livelihoods. He claimed the defense\u2019s allegations were false and accused the defense attorneys of acting in bad faith when they alleged prosecutorial misconduct. <\/span><\/p>\n

Valenzuela, who had observed the incident, then took the stand. (Valenzuela did not preside over this April hearing, as she was a witness to the events at issue.) She described how, without provocation, LaHood had threatened to make sure the defense lawyers never got appointed on another case, becoming so enraged that she feared \u201csomebody would get hurt physically.\u201d She explained that LaHood may have committed misdemeanor official oppression, a crime that occurs when an official uses his power to<\/a> \u201cmistreat\u201d others or impede them in the exercise of their rights.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Might<\/span><\/b> have committed official oppression? Might<\/span><\/b> have?<\/p>\n

Seriously?<\/p>\n

He did it in front of a judge who testified against him.<\/p>\n

He needs to be jailed and disbarred.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It now seems taht some prosecutors are making professional and physical threats against defense counsel for offering a a vigorous defense of their clients: \u2026\u2026\u2026 In February, San Antonio District Attorney Nico LaHood allegedly did just that. LaHood was prosecuting Miguel Martinez, who stood accused of shooting a graduate student named Laura Carter in the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[368,364,407,526],"class_list":["post-180023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-corruption","tag-evil","tag-justice","tag-law-enforcement-misconduct"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180023"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180023\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}