Latest / Blue Grit Podcast: The Voice of Texas Law Enforcement / #131- "Court of Inquiry" with Doug O'Connell

Transcript

#131- "Court of Inquiry" with Doug O'Connell · Blue Grit Podcast: The Voice of Texas Law Enforcement

0:00
SPEAKER_00: District Attorney's Office held secret negotiations with the city of Austin.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, the city was not indicted.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: The problem comes into play in that they didn't they didn't notify the defendant that they had engaged in these negotiations and that they had developed evidence where they felt like they could get an indictment in the city.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: Welcome back, viewers, watchers, listeners.
0:26
SPEAKER_03: I'm your host, Tyler Owen, my co-host today, is joining us by phone clip near long time no see, I guess, or here.
0:35
SPEAKER_03: He has been on the road advocating uh for our members here in Texas FOP, as you all are well aware.
0:41
SPEAKER_03: Clint is the Texas FOP president and also serves as field services supervisor here at TNPA.
0:46
SPEAKER_03: We wanted to have him on when he had a short moment.
0:49
SPEAKER_03: If you're not on the road today, I hope I hope you're not driving and texting and calling, but uh he wanted to join us by phone.
0:54
SPEAKER_03: And the Texas FOP and TNPA joint TMPA conference is coming up July 24th through the 26th.
1:00
SPEAKER_03: Clint, you there?
1:02
SPEAKER_03: I'm here.
1:03
SPEAKER_03: Man, what have you been up to?
1:06
SPEAKER_01: Oh man, just sitting around, just bored, nothing really going on anywhere.
1:10
SPEAKER_03: Nothing going on across the state.
1:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, man.
1:12
SPEAKER_03: It's uh it's good hearing your voice.
1:13
SPEAKER_03: It's always good seeing you.
1:14
SPEAKER_03: Of course, we see each other in passing when we're at different TNPA events, but man, you're you're always busy.
1:19
SPEAKER_03: But I want to reach out to you today and explain, you know, with TNPA and Texas FOP conference, it's kind of a joint deal and it's kind of a unique and challenging situation for us that are involved with planning the conference.
1:29
SPEAKER_03: And we ran into a snag this week or last week where we completely forgot how to register the Texas FOP attendees that want to attend our conference.
1:37
SPEAKER_03: And so, what better way to get to uh explanation than get the president on the phone and talk about why that is and how to register if you are a Texas FOP uh member and you want to attend our joint conference?
1:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so um I think everybody's excited we'll be back as a joint conference again.
1:57
SPEAKER_01: And it just continues to build on the unity that we're building across the state.
2:02
SPEAKER_01: I was in Houston last week and got to have brunch with uh groups with president of Houston and David Clay was president of her county and Sharpie's president of Dallas.
2:13
SPEAKER_01: And it was good to just sit down and break bread and talk about everybody's commitment to being united and uniting all coups across Texas.
2:23
SPEAKER_03: I take it Lena Hildargo probably did not join y'all for brunch.
2:26
SPEAKER_01: She was not there.
2:28
SPEAKER_01: No, she was not there.
2:29
SPEAKER_03: No invite, no invite for Lena.
2:30
SPEAKER_03: I doubt that.
2:31
SPEAKER_03: No, yeah, you're right.
2:32
SPEAKER_03: You're right.
2:33
SPEAKER_03: It's good for you guys to be unified, it's good for us to be unified and us to have kind of a you know a take in that.
2:38
SPEAKER_03: And uh that's been a longtime vision uh for TNPA, people like Mitch Landry and Kevin Lawrence that have you know been advocating for for this to be the way it is today, and it's uh super exciting to see from the outside in.
2:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and this is I mean, to your point, it's this this movement's been in the works for 10 or 12 years, and it's it's cool to see everybody's recommitment to to this effort, to lock arms, that we're unified.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: And I think the conference just highlights that we can all come together in one place this year in Dallas.
3:12
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
3:12
SPEAKER_01: And everybody gets together and um be be one giant family.
3:17
SPEAKER_03: That's awesome.
3:18
SPEAKER_03: Well, for those that want to register and attend our conference and come hang out with the TNPA, Texas FOP crew, you can go online.
3:25
SPEAKER_03: We're gonna push that information out on this podcast and on our YouTube channel.
3:29
SPEAKER_03: It's actually through a company or website called Handbid.
3:32
SPEAKER_03: TNPA found that was probably the easiest way to get these people registered or the attendees registered.
3:36
SPEAKER_03: And so when you go on there and you want to attend as a Texas FOP member or a TNPA member, go on there and it says Texas member, uh Texas, excuse me, Texas FOP member registration.
3:47
SPEAKER_03: You click on that and you do have to file some information in there about your email, your cell phone number.
3:52
SPEAKER_03: Super simple, and that's just to be able to attract um the ability for you to engage or participate in the auction later on during our conference.
4:01
SPEAKER_03: And for those that, you know, money's tight.
4:03
SPEAKER_03: Uh gas prices right now are at$3.70 a gallon.
4:07
SPEAKER_03: And uh there's a difference between Texas FOP and TMPA and kind of the guidelines.
4:11
SPEAKER_03: But if you want to attend and you just honestly just don't have the funds to be able to partake in those hospitality nights, you can attend as a Texas FOP day pass.
4:20
SPEAKER_03: Go online to that hand bid website and click on that, and you'll be able to attend conference only, which does not include the extracurricular activities, which is hospitality night, and that's just things that you know, TMPA uh in Texas FOP, the the things that we provide those attendees by attending our conference, which is hospitality night, banquets, and so forth.
4:39
SPEAKER_01: So, anyway, yeah, and I I think an important thing to point out too, um a lot of people want to do that day pass only.
4:49
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then when they show up and see how much fun the meals are good, the entertainment at night is excellent, our banquet um is is some of that banquet is amazing.
5:00
SPEAKER_01: It is uh and then people realize now I'm missing out on a whole lot.
5:04
SPEAKER_01: So just be sure if you click that day pass, just be sure you are certain that you don't want the meals and people will ask about the price and why they have to pay.
5:14
SPEAKER_01: And you know, we pay like a hundred dollars a gallon for tea and coffee.
5:19
SPEAKER_01: Um the meals.
5:23
SPEAKER_03: When he mentioned how much we pay for coffee and and tea.
5:26
SPEAKER_01: And and that that money has to come from somewhere.
5:30
SPEAKER_01: And when you look at all other law enforcement conferences across the country, uh our conference is really, really reasonable to attend.
5:40
SPEAKER_01: It is.
5:51
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're we're teams in price on our conference.
5:55
SPEAKER_01: And you get a lot of bang for your buck.
5:57
SPEAKER_01: So before you click that day pass only and show up and miss out, um think think before.
6:02
SPEAKER_01: We'd love to have you either way, but um just think long and hard before you do it.
6:07
SPEAKER_01: We want you to come either way, though.
6:09
SPEAKER_03: Well, again, back to Clint's point.
6:10
SPEAKER_03: If you if if you do want to attend my myself and Mitch Landry is here with us, join us uh on the podcast today, and me and Mitch actually had the uh the unfortunate task of uh speaking with a Texas FOP person who wanted to show up as a day pass.
6:24
SPEAKER_03: And it honestly felt like he and I were the principals of a high school prom and having to go tell uh you know somebody who wanted to participate in the dancing aspect that, hey, you can't you can be here, but you just can't participate.
6:35
SPEAKER_03: So, you know, back to Clint's point, it's a great networking opportunity if you're in law enforcement, it's a great networking opportunity for for union and and for association leadership aspects.
6:44
SPEAKER_03: And man, the the amount of connections that you can get from picking up the phones, sending an email just with our board of directors on top of our field reps, it's amazing if really the connections just within TMPA.
6:54
SPEAKER_03: You go to our conference and there's six to seven hundred attendees there, you can you can put pen to paper and just imagine.
6:59
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, Clint, is that all you got, bud?
7:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I I want to exaggerate your point.
7:05
SPEAKER_01: Um, I was telling somebody the other day that's what our conference is, and I said, you know, you're a new board member on at your local association, and to show up in one room and be able to talk to somebody that may be the president of a 20-person association, yeah, or talk to Doug Griffiths who has 5,200 members, and to be able to pick their brain of how do you guys do this, or how's how do you navigate this issue, or how do you build and you can literally talk to somebody that runs a 20-man association or a 5,200-man association to have the institutional knowledge and experience there in one place to be able to network and that's invaluable for what we're trying to help our members grow.
7:48
SPEAKER_03: I agree.
7:49
SPEAKER_03: I agree.
7:50
SPEAKER_03: Well, hey, brother, it was good talking to you.
7:52
SPEAKER_03: Uh, hope all was well in your world and uh need something my way, give me a shout.
7:56
SPEAKER_01: Doug Mitch, Tyler, thank you for having me on.
7:59
SPEAKER_01: Yes, sir.
7:59
SPEAKER_01: Hate to meet you guys this morning.
8:01
SPEAKER_03: Yes, sir.
8:01
SPEAKER_03: See, Clint.
8:02
SPEAKER_03: That was uh Clint McNair, our Texas FOP president and field services supervisor for TMPA for the East Side, which he covers Dallas down to Houston, over to uh my old neck of the woods there in East Texas.
8:14
SPEAKER_03: But like I said before, we are joined by two special guests, one being our deputy exec director, which once again a guy that kind of runs the roost and is all over the all over the place here in Austin with uh Ledge and his duties as deputy exec director, but that's Mitch Landry, our number two in command, and Doug O'Connell, which is a a recent what we've we've had there our relationship with you for probably going on two, three years now.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: I think that's right.
8:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's uh and and when I say you're a you're a bull in a China cabinet, that's uh that's an understatement.
8:45
SPEAKER_03: But uh Mitch, is there anything going on right now?
8:47
SPEAKER_03: This is kind of a downtime for you, uh, you being involved, so involved with the the legislative stuff.
8:52
SPEAKER_03: I know yesterday one of our our directors was involved with a QA question from one of our local offices, but kind of give the member an idea of kind of what goes on at the at the ledge during the off season.
9:03
SPEAKER_02: Uh we we call it the interim, and to me it's it's the most important part of time uh during the legislation.
9:10
SPEAKER_02: And uh legislative session is everybody thinks that's very important, but the the time between the interim, yeah, that's when we get a lot done.
9:19
SPEAKER_02: We're out visiting with members of the House, Senate, uh meeting with members down at the the Capitol, meeting with the staff.
9:27
SPEAKER_02: Yep, and that's where you're building those relationships.
9:30
SPEAKER_02: For sure.
9:30
SPEAKER_02: Because when you get into that session from January to May, it's busy.
9:36
SPEAKER_02: And those staffers don't have time to sit around.
9:38
SPEAKER_02: We're in the interim, we can go to lunch, we can go to dinner.
9:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we sit there and build those.
9:42
SPEAKER_02: So it's very important.
9:44
SPEAKER_02: And then of course, we just came out of the elections, uh, the primaries.
9:47
SPEAKER_02: We have some runoffs that are coming up that'll be very important.
9:50
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, one that affects us uh is the attorney general's race.
9:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
9:55
SPEAKER_02: Uh and we have uh, you know, we're involved in that and endorsed Mays Middleton on that.
10:01
SPEAKER_02: And so we'll see how it all falls out here in a month or so.
10:04
SPEAKER_03: It's gonna be interesting.
10:05
SPEAKER_03: You prepare at times when you're not at war, is the best time to prepare for war.
10:10
SPEAKER_03: And and not that the legislative is is a is a battleground by any means, but it it certainly can be on certain days.
10:15
SPEAKER_03: But you know, it's cool to see you guys interact with the state legislators.
10:18
SPEAKER_03: It's cool to pick up the phone and call a state legislator or senator, and we're gonna talk about some different things that we've got issues with right now with grand juries and and and district attorney's office and how they kind of do procedures, but it's cool that we have those relationships and have the ability to.
10:31
SPEAKER_03: And just a reminder, for those members that you know constantly pick up the uh pick up the magazine or read something online and they're and they're angry about a certain bill or angry that we couldn't get something past, I encourage anybody to do this.
10:44
SPEAKER_03: If you're interested in contributing to the TNPA PAC, man, do so.
10:48
SPEAKER_03: Uh money talks and bullshit walks is the is the is the best way.
10:51
SPEAKER_03: Those legislators down there, lobbyists uh is the best way to say it.
10:54
SPEAKER_03: Get involved.
10:55
SPEAKER_03: I encourage you to get involved.
10:56
SPEAKER_03: Reach out to our ledge team.
10:57
SPEAKER_03: They are very, very, very informational, and they also want your input, boots on the ground, that are cops out there right now serving their their public.
11:04
SPEAKER_02: So that that's something that's real important you just hit on.
11:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:08
SPEAKER_02: Uh if our members, if they have an idea, they've they have a legislative agenda item and they're like, hey, I think this is a great idea.
11:16
SPEAKER_02: Now is the time to contact us.
11:18
SPEAKER_02: You know, call us, email.
11:19
SPEAKER_02: It's a great point.
11:20
SPEAKER_02: Uh email us because that gives us the groundwork going into session.
11:25
SPEAKER_02: We can we can decide what we need to do, get with the legislators, get the language built.
11:31
SPEAKER_02: It's very difficult when we get those calls the end of January during session saying, hey, here's a great idea.
11:36
SPEAKER_02: Well, we're a little behind the yeah.
11:38
SPEAKER_03: Well, and it's it's kind of a frustrating thing that you know that this piece of legislation, that this idea would be great for law enforcement.
11:45
SPEAKER_03: We just were too late to get it, you know, get it done.
11:47
SPEAKER_03: Right now is the talking points.
11:49
SPEAKER_03: But anyway, our other guest that we have on today, big news out of Austin, Texas.
11:53
SPEAKER_03: Again, our friend and uh close colleague and regional attorney Doug O'Connell is with us today to give a little backstory and current update of what's going on here in Austin.
12:01
SPEAKER_03: Doug, appreciate you stopping by, man.
12:03
SPEAKER_03: Well, thanks.
12:04
SPEAKER_03: Not that you've been busy or doing any news interviews, but uh Well, we have generated some news.
12:10
SPEAKER_03: We have, we have.
12:11
SPEAKER_03: Uh, for those that don't know, we uh the 2020 twenty twenty riots here in Austin, uh post-George Floyd, um, it was catastrophic to many law enforcement careers, and and we're still battling those today uh to include these this Travis Kennedy District Attorney's Office.
12:28
SPEAKER_03: Um shortly after, I believe it was six months to maybe a year, 21 were indicted.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: It was a little bit longer than that.
12:35
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: About a year later, 21 indicted, a couple of officers had multiple indictments, all related to their uh official duties during the riots.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: And most most of this had to do with uh engaging rioters with less lethal beanbag rounds.
12:55
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
12:56
SPEAKER_03: And uh kind of give us an update of kind of a walk us through the process.
13:01
SPEAKER_03: We we had we had those indicted, and then moving forward, just recently, about a year ago, right, uh we had 19 that were dismissed of the 21.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: That's correct.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: Uh four officers remain indicted.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: My team represents two of those officers, and then uh two other officers are represented by a different colleague of mine.
13:22
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
13:22
SPEAKER_03: So walk us through the current process of what recently re- recent events have kind of transpired.
13:27
SPEAKER_03: We at TNPA, uh, along with you, because your relationship with the Austin Police Association, very well respected uh and well-rounded attorney, and you're you're you're getting bigger.
13:37
SPEAKER_03: We're gonna we're gonna touch on that here in a little bit.
13:39
SPEAKER_03: I didn't say well-rounded, I meant I meant I meant professional and very educational.
13:46
SPEAKER_03: No, I'm the one getting bigger.
13:47
SPEAKER_03: Anybody that knows Doug O'Connell knows that he's very informational and very well educated, and he's easy to talk to, and I think that comes from your military background.
13:54
SPEAKER_03: And anyone, it I think you were in Green Beret.
13:57
SPEAKER_03: Correct.
13:57
SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's that that that that says a lot right there, but you are very understandably frustrated with how things are going with this Travis Kennedy DA's office because you ultimately care about law enforcement and how they're treated or mistreated by this DA's office.
14:12
SPEAKER_03: And so give us kind of an update of what recent events have transpired.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we have a trial date, June 1st.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: We're supposed to be in trial uh representing Officer Chance Bretches.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: And so we're already getting ready for trial and have been for months.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: In the course of preparing for trial, uh, we learned that back in 2023, the district attorney's office held secret negotiations with the city of Austin.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: And what was going on was the district attorney's office planned to indict the city as a corporate entity for the actions of the police department.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: And you can do that, it doesn't happen very often, but it that's the provision exists in the in the laws.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: And so the city obviously didn't want to be indicted, so they went out and hired their own criminal defense attorney, one of the top-tier defense attorneys in Austin.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: And they had these secret negotiations about what the city could do to avoid being indicted.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: And they talked about an external audit, you know, having a having a uh a team of investigators come in and look at all the APD procedures, that sort of thing.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: They seem, I believe they talked about, well, what can be done to get you to dismiss all the all the individual officers.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately the city was not indicted, we believe, because the DA's office miscalculated or wasn't paying attention to the statute of limitation.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: But the the problem comes into play in that they didn't they didn't notify us, the defense, that they had engaged in these negotiations and that they had developed evidence where they felt like they could get an indictment against the city.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: And you know, one of the things officers need to all officers in Texas need to know about is the Brady Doctrine, the Michael Morton Act, those two things especially, and then sometimes a court's discovery order.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: And simplified, it means under the Michael Morton Act, that all evidence, not just exculpatory evidence, but all evidence has to be turned over to the defense.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: And they very clearly didn't do that in this case.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: And it's a huge problem because this isn't the first time that we've caught this DA's office hiding evidence in a police officer case.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: Um when we represented uh two Williamson County deputies um who were tried for manslaughter and were acquitted, um we discovered in that case that they withheld the decedent's warrant of arrest and they didn't produce that to us.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: So you know, we'll never know whether or not they've ever given us all the evidence in Chance Bretches' case.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: And so because of that, we've asked the court to dismiss the case.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: We've filed a motion to dismiss, we've asked for a hearing.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh we don't know any other solution because if they come forward now and say, okay, here's all the evidence.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: How do we know that this time really this is all the evidence?
17:43
SPEAKER_00: Because they've already certified in open court that they had given us all the evidence.
17:51
SPEAKER_03: The most frustrating, and me and Mitch have had many conversations about this, about it's frustrating because you can sit back and look at this DA's office and see what they do.
18:00
SPEAKER_03: And then we had the legislative side where lawmakers I think want to get involved and they want to change things to make it better.
18:07
SPEAKER_03: And listen, it's not just for law enforcement.
18:09
SPEAKER_03: You and I had this conversation the other day, is that the scary thing about Travis County, and Mitch, chime in, you've lived here a lot longer than I have in this area.
18:16
SPEAKER_03: What's frustrating is that if this the if this district attorney's office, or really anybody out there, any DA's office that's willing to withhold evidence on such a high-profile case involving law enforcement, what other cases are they withholding on, right?
18:28
SPEAKER_03: And so in our talks with the governor's office, and there's some there's some information coming out today at a press conference with our, I think Vice President Bill Nelson is going to be there to talk about special prosecutor information that the governor's pushing, but this governor has been very critical of this office on other cases, ones that you've represented, um, on how he handles things and just the unethical process that this office continues to do.
18:55
SPEAKER_03: What makes it challenging is it what's interesting is that the Michael Morton situation, correct me if I'm wrong, just happened up the road.
19:01
SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's the reason why Michael Morton exists today, was because of Williamson County.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: Georgetown, 45 minutes up the road.
19:08
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
19:08
SPEAKER_03: And so for you 45 minutes south at a you know progressive DA's office is what we want to call them, or what he likes to identify as.
19:17
SPEAKER_03: For you to be progressive, you're regressing in the sense of legal legalities by offering those to defendants.
19:23
SPEAKER_03: And I think that's a travesty.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: But perhaps it's only in police officer cases or other cases where he has a political interest.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: People have asked, well, do you think he's withholding evidence in regular criminal defendants' cases?
19:39
SPEAKER_00: And and I don't know.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: I I don't think so.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: I've never heard or I've never experienced anything like what we've seen in the police officer cases.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: And it might be that in order to take the extraordinary risk of withholding evidence, you have to really deeply care about getting a conviction.
20:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: Wherein the regular criminal defendant is not his priority.
20:05
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, 100%.
20:06
SPEAKER_03: And again, me and Mitch have talked about this.
20:08
SPEAKER_03: His primary goal and promise when he was elected was to hold law enforcement accountable.
20:13
SPEAKER_03: And to your point, I think that that has possibly fogged his ability to equally uh try anybody, if you're not a police officer or not, is that he can't distinguish it's it's hard for him to disquit this distinguish those in the sense that he's targeting cops.
20:31
SPEAKER_03: We've seen it multiple times over and over again, and he's backed his political promise.
20:36
SPEAKER_03: The interesting thing about Travis County is this is I think that, and and Kevin Lawrence says this all the time too, is that the science experiment's over.
20:44
SPEAKER_03: I think that, yes, George Floyd happened.
20:46
SPEAKER_03: I'm not going to give my opinion on whether I disagree or agree of what the transpires or how the physical stuff happened.
20:52
SPEAKER_03: What was interesting and frustrating for me and us in law enforcement was that this shit happened in two states away and we're paying the price for it here in Texas.
21:00
SPEAKER_03: That's the frustrating thing, right?
21:02
SPEAKER_03: And we've still got guys that continue not to be in law enforcement because of that, because of that principle.
21:07
SPEAKER_03: This whole situation is bad.
21:09
SPEAKER_03: And I uh we applaud it, TMPA applaud your efforts in trying to get this thing completed and trying to get justice.
21:17
SPEAKER_03: Trying to get justice for the officers and allow them at at least a a uh equal opportunity to defend themselves in court.
21:24
SPEAKER_03: Here's a situation that I think is important and I think we're missing is that it's okay i it's almost like everybody's turning a blind eye to the city of Austin.
21:33
SPEAKER_03: They escaped out of this and left the left their officers high and dry.
21:36
SPEAKER_03: In the meantime, they're suffering six to seven hundred officers of of of vacancies at that department.
21:42
SPEAKER_03: It's a it's a very difficult job to be a police officer in the city of Austin.
21:45
SPEAKER_03: And what the city did, in my opinion, is just as culpable, or just as bad as what this DA's office did.
21:51
SPEAKER_00: I'm interested when we have a hearing to learn more about what they did, what they didn't do.
21:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: Um because you might Maybe right.
22:00
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
22:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
22:02
SPEAKER_03: So what's to come right now?
22:03
SPEAKER_03: We've got uh you have filed at this point, you filed a motion to dismiss.
22:08
SPEAKER_03: A motion of inquiry, and let's talk about that real quick for those that don't know what a motion of inquiry, because we didn't know what the hell it was.
22:16
SPEAKER_03: What exactly is a motion of inquiry?
22:18
SPEAKER_00: So it's a motion for a court of inquiry.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: So a court of inquiry is an obscure provision in the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: It's designed to empower a judge to hold basically a probable cause hearing on their own to determine if a crime has been committed.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: Most of the time it is uh involves a situation where the suspect or subject of the court of inquiry is a public official.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: I say most of the times, that's probably not a good way to phrase it.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: I've only ever heard of this happening once before in my 31 years of practicing law, and that was Ken Anderson, the prosecutor who prosecuted Michael Morton.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: And the issue there was did he in fact withhold exculpatory evidence?
23:10
SPEAKER_00: And the answer was yes.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: He ultimately was convicted, and I want to say did nine or ten days in jail, lost his law license.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: Um well let me let me just say we filed that motion, and I think after more facts are known, after the judge gathers more facts, she may or may not grant that motion.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: Um if she does, she sends it to the regional administrative judge who would appoint district court judge from outside of Travis County to convene the court of inquiry.
23:47
SPEAKER_03: Let me ask you this.
23:48
SPEAKER_03: In in civil law, it's much lesser to try to get a guilty verdict on than than a criminal, right?
23:55
SPEAKER_03: What what check checks and balances do you have to have in order for that court to grant the motion to even be upheld?
24:04
SPEAKER_03: Is it the same kind of court proceedings or is it a civil case?
24:07
SPEAKER_03: Where what the laws of justice is what I guess what I'm saying.
24:10
SPEAKER_03: The preponderance of evidence is greater.
24:11
SPEAKER_03: Sure.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: Uh well I'm not sure very many people know, and I don't claim to be an expert uh on this because I was not involved in the Ken Anderson, Michael Morton situation.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: But I think it's a probable cause standard.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: If the judge finds probable cause, then the court either issues an arrest warrant or a summons uh wherein the defendant has to answer for the allegation.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh defendant would obviously be entitled to an attorney, and a special prosecutor would have to be appointed.
24:48
SPEAKER_03: So hypothetically, when this thing does kind of kick off, uh the defendant in this case on the court of the quarter of inquiry would be Jose Garza or would it be the office itself?
25:01
SPEAKER_00: It would be Mr.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: Garza and his top lieutenants.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:05
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
25:06
SPEAKER_03: And then hypothetically, they would they would need to report back to the court or essentially be arrested or summoned to the court to have these proceedings.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: Well, they'd be I'm I'm making it.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: Right, hypothetically, yeah, yeah.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: Uh I think they would be yeah, summons to the court and uh it would be a regular court proceeding from there.
25:29
SPEAKER_02: Gotcha.
25:29
SPEAKER_02: When do you think we will know if the judge is going to allow it to proceed?
25:33
SPEAKER_00: Sometime after the hearing on the motion to dismiss, because that's when all the evidence should come out, and that's when uh Mr.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: Garza and others will have an opportunity to tell the court why I'm wrong.
25:52
SPEAKER_03: For those that don't know, let me let me give a back history of Garza.
25:55
SPEAKER_03: When I first moved down here, I mean it's a really short story.
25:58
SPEAKER_03: When I first moved down here, I uh obviously did not care for Garza and his antics and his ways of doing things.
26:05
SPEAKER_03: For those that don't know, I was at a UT football game.
26:09
SPEAKER_03: My wife happened to go get a beverage for me, and I looked over and she said, Hey, the DA of Travis County is in the in the house at this football game.
26:16
SPEAKER_03: Of course, it instantly shot my blood pressure up, and I've I'm a very passionate person for those that don't know.
26:21
SPEAKER_03: Quite honestly, on the edge of emotional, if you could, if you could imagine that.
26:24
SPEAKER_03: I looked back and I said, you know what?
26:26
SPEAKER_03: Saturday, I'm gonna I'm gonna allow him time with his family, and I just couldn't stand it.
26:30
SPEAKER_03: The day went on, and I went over and tapped him on the shoulder, and he and I had a conversation.
26:34
SPEAKER_03: Well, that conversation led into us having talks to include uh executive leadership of TNPA, and it wasn't anything that we knew was going not going to happen, but it just started the communication aspect.
26:46
SPEAKER_03: Shortly after that is when the indictments were dismissed, and we communicated that.
26:52
SPEAKER_03: Said, hey, you know what?
26:53
SPEAKER_03: Because I think one thing that it's important, it's hard for me to do in my job.
26:56
SPEAKER_03: I'm hypercritical at people that make mistakes, but once or twice when people do get it right, such as him dismissing that, we just like, hey, good job on that.
27:05
SPEAKER_03: That's the right thing to do, right?
27:06
SPEAKER_03: If you're gonna call them out when they when they mess up, call them out and praise them when they do right.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: And so I'll praise him if he dismisses Chance and Chance's case and my other client, Jeff Tan.
27:18
SPEAKER_03: As we should.
27:19
SPEAKER_03: We really should have never been here.
27:21
SPEAKER_03: But the relationship between TNPA and Jose Garza has been, I wouldn't say great.
27:26
SPEAKER_03: It's just been on the communication level where we can respect each other in the sense of we can communicate and call him out on his bullshit when we need to.
27:33
SPEAKER_03: But this whole situation, and it's been ghost, it's been ghostly quiet since December.
27:37
SPEAKER_03: But it's just gonna be interesting how this plays out.
27:40
SPEAKER_03: Um and it I'm I'm interested to see how the court of inquiry goes.
27:44
SPEAKER_03: I'm not saying he's gonna call me as a character witness.
27:47
SPEAKER_03: He might call Mitch.
27:49
SPEAKER_03: But go ahead.
27:50
SPEAKER_02: Well, no, I was just gonna say anyone interested in the subject we're talking about right now with the inquiry and the Ken Anderson deal in Williamson County, I encourage you to go read the Michael Morton book, the biography on that.
28:05
SPEAKER_02: It will it's very interesting.
28:08
SPEAKER_02: You'll you'll walk away mad.
28:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it completely changed law enforcement in the sense of investigations.
28:13
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I remember writing stuff down on pads, and then it wasn't anything to the case.
28:18
SPEAKER_03: It was simply like complainants, phone numbers, and phone that I would add to a case later.
28:22
SPEAKER_03: Well, now all that has to be included in inside the case because of Michael Morton.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: Um You know, I I recommend officers, especially detectives who are working up a case to be handed off to the prosecutor, um, to go sit with that prosecutor knee to knee and say, Hey, I brought my file and or here's my laptop.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: Let's go through everything in my file.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: I want to make sure you have it.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: Now the the prosecutor uh should already be asking for that, in my opinion, you know, that for that meeting to review.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: But if they're not, the officer, there's nothing wrong with the officer initiating uh that link up to make sure they really do have everything.
29:03
SPEAKER_03: Well, and to your point, back to the we've said this multiple times on this podcast, is that you would think, and I'm not suggesting that when a cop messes up, we will be the first one to say that was wrong and he should be convicted or or done done dealt with appropriately.
29:18
SPEAKER_03: But to your point is that that's in a real world where cops and prosecutors should be on the same team.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:24
SPEAKER_03: What we're seeing in in the Kim Og days of Harris County, it's a little bit different now with Sean Tier, the Crizeau days in Dallas County, and now Travis County, and even Bear County down there in San Antonio, you're starting to see there was that relationship's gone.
29:38
SPEAKER_03: So these these investigators attempt to have those conversations with the DA's office, but it's just so complicated because they're committed to their political beliefs and not committed to what the law says and and and being on the same team, to your point.
29:52
SPEAKER_03: But exactly.
29:53
SPEAKER_03: Anyway, uh looking forward to that.
29:55
SPEAKER_03: I I think we'll have that probably I would say six months, maybe uh a year.
30:00
SPEAKER_03: We just don't know, depending on how the courts proceed and and how we how we get through that.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no idea what timeline looks like for that, but I at a minimum months down the road, I would think.
30:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
30:11
SPEAKER_03: Is there any way for the listener out there that's not in law enforcement that wants to you know help out or uh you know be of assistance to these officers, uh your firm, you deal with other military personnel too.
30:22
SPEAKER_03: How is there a way that they can do that?
30:23
SPEAKER_03: Just reach out to the firm.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're we're always happy to happy to talk to folks.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh I can't think of anything specific I need help with on this matter, but you know, you can't have too many friends.
30:37
SPEAKER_03: No, that's that's true.
30:38
SPEAKER_03: That's true.
30:39
SPEAKER_03: And speaking of friends, Doug, uh being right here in Austin, he has expanded uh his his firm.
30:45
SPEAKER_03: Let's talk about that real quick because you've expanded down to San Antonio and up to Clean and give us kind of an overview of how big your law firm has become.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: Well, right now we have 10 attorneys backed up by a great support staff team.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: Uh here in Austin, besides me, we have Lori Jamala, retired prosecutor.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: Uh Drew Roundtree, also a long history of being a prosecutor.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: He's board certified in criminal law.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: Lindsay Adams.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: Lindsay has been trying cop cases with me for uh three or four years.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: All the big ones that have been in the news.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: Derek Israel joined us not too long ago.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: Derek is a uh retired APD detective, and he also spent some time as a prosecutor out in Lubbock.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: And then uh in Taylor, Texas, we have Wesley West, he does civil law.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: Down in Bromfels, San Antonio, we have Amber Wagner, she's actually out on OIS right now.
31:49
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: Uh Trent Warner, who does family law, Scott Walters who does uh military.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: We call Scott Walters old Scott because he's been with us a while.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: And now we have new Scott where we've just added Scott Hughes up in Killeen, Parker Heights, Belton area, Bell County.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: Scott's a retired military judge and who's also been a prosecutor, and he'll be focusing on representing military personnel and and doing regular state court criminal proceedings.
32:27
SPEAKER_03: Which is a great Scott Hughes at being being added to the firm is a great asset.
32:30
SPEAKER_03: We ETMPA just gained uh a local association in Temple POA, and so that's gonna be a huge asset for them.
32:37
SPEAKER_03: So uh again, I want to stress this out for the TMP members and Mitch, you can chime in.
32:42
SPEAKER_03: These regional attorneys, these are all under Doug O'Connell's firm, O'Connell West uh LLC or PLC firm.
32:49
SPEAKER_03: And so if if you have a a connection with one of these attorneys that you know that they've had some prior cases with APA in in our legal plan, you can request these attorneys.
32:57
SPEAKER_03: They're there they we have contracts and we have relationships with these attorneys, but that's Doug's Doug's firm within Austin's one of many.
33:04
SPEAKER_03: We've got Robert McCabe, Tiger Hanner, we've got some very reputable and respected attorneys around the state, and we continue to add to the arsenal of attorneys that we have at TNPA just this week.
33:15
SPEAKER_03: Robert McCabe and Greg Hagel, a longtime goat of TNPA's legal services, are in Houston right now trying a murder case.
33:21
SPEAKER_03: Hagel's got another indictment that he just got, you know, got last week.
33:24
SPEAKER_03: And so these are quality attorneys, and Mitch says it best, him and Kevin both, is that there are plenty of attorneys out there.
33:33
SPEAKER_03: There aren't a lot of attorneys that meet the special recipe that I think is needed for law enforcement practice.
33:40
SPEAKER_03: And so we we kind of go through a vetting process with TNPA and our legal services, and so when we recommend an attorney or the UC a name on our website, they've been vetted, they're trusted, and they are uh battle tested, I guess is the best way to say it.
33:53
SPEAKER_03: And so Doug O'Connell has very well made a reputation of himself with uh battling against this Travis kind of DA uh with his relationship with APA, and so that's how the introduction was made, and man, what an honor it is to to to see you work and to see the the stuff that you're doing for those guys.
34:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, I I kind of think of it this way.
34:11
SPEAKER_00: Uh and and I never expected my legal career to play out the way it has.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: I I think of it this way, you know, the men and women of law enforcement, the the men and women who run towards danger to keep the rest of us safe.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking of the recent mass shooting on 6th Street, yeah, uh where I represented those three APD officers.
34:38
SPEAKER_00: Those officers who put themselves in harm's way to protect me and my family, if if they're asking me to be their legal representation, their attorney, that's incredibly humbling and a terrific honor.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:53
SPEAKER_00: And so um, you know, I think I can't think of anybody I'd prefer to represent than a law enforcement officer, a soldier, one of their family members, that sort of thing.
35:08
SPEAKER_03: Well, and I think it's important too that that we're we are right now on the heels of war uh or active war right now with Iran, and and I think that coming off the heels of the past war, having military people around Kaleen, San Antonio, I think that's why it's a special blend of what you kind of bring to the table.
35:22
SPEAKER_03: But also, military and police are very much intertwined and very much cut the same cloth.
35:28
SPEAKER_03: And I think that's the special recipe I think that you have is the brotherhood-sisterhood aspect of let's just face it, cops are somewhat, in a sense, when they're off duty, they're kind of strange, they kind of keep to themselves and a very close-knit group.
35:40
SPEAKER_03: And uh you have to understand it in order to communicate with those kind of people.
35:44
SPEAKER_03: And so that I think that's the special blend that you have.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: I think you're probably right.
35:48
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
35:48
SPEAKER_03: So anything else, Mitch?
35:50
SPEAKER_02: I just wanted to tell Doug how much we appreciate you and not only you, Doug, but all of our attorneys around the state.
35:57
SPEAKER_02: For sure.
35:58
SPEAKER_02: What you what you hear from Doug today is what you hear from every one of our attorneys over in the state, whether it's in Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston.
36:06
SPEAKER_02: We're just as passionate about protecting our members and representing them as Doug is, and we're very fortunate to have them.
36:14
SPEAKER_03: We are.
36:14
SPEAKER_03: And you can continue to we can continue to name plenty of them that that just continue to go out day in, day out.
36:20
SPEAKER_03: Uh, I can Bob Borski one in Dallas, Lance White, those kind of random more.
36:24
SPEAKER_03: Um, we've just got in a phenomenal list of attorneys to choose from.
36:29
SPEAKER_03: And it's hard.
36:29
SPEAKER_03: It's hard to choose from because you don't know which one.
36:32
SPEAKER_03: Uh, but the man sitting to my right, definitely Hen Austin, him and him and Robert McCabe, uh, as far as the criminal aspect, I think, are two of the top notch in central Texas.
36:40
SPEAKER_03: And it's uh it's an honor to work with you guys from the communication side.
36:43
SPEAKER_03: So thank you for what you do.
36:44
SPEAKER_03: So all right.
36:45
SPEAKER_03: Well, that's it from us, the TNPA uh blue grip podcast.
36:48
SPEAKER_03: Mitch, appreciate you stopping by, man.
36:50
SPEAKER_03: Don't be a stranger.
36:50
SPEAKER_03: Grab me in the I did, I grabbed him and said, come on, we're we're we're coming down here to the blue grit.
36:55
SPEAKER_03: Doug, I appreciate you stopping by again, man.
36:56
SPEAKER_03: It's uh it's always a pleasure to get you on Blue Grit.
36:59
SPEAKER_03: July 24th through the 26th, TNPA Texas FOP conference.
37:04
SPEAKER_03: We are gonna be in Dallas at the Hyatt Regency.
37:06
SPEAKER_03: It's gonna be a party, it's gonna be a good time.
37:09
SPEAKER_03: Don't be cheap and get the Texas FOP pass for you, Texas FOP members.
37:13
SPEAKER_03: Go ahead, attend.
37:14
SPEAKER_03: You're gonna have hospitality night, get a little alcohol in you, get a little fun casino night.
37:19
SPEAKER_03: Our agenda for that may it may come up as surprise for those that have attended conference before.
37:24
SPEAKER_03: We maybe see things a little bit different with moving potentially the banquet to Saturday night or the casino night.
37:30
SPEAKER_03: But the reason why we're doing that is we're trying to maximize number one, our attendance of the banquet, but number two, we're trying to maximize that's our only really big benefit for our TMPA charities, for those that don't know, is our conference.
37:41
SPEAKER_03: And so we always try to uh is the juice worth the squeeze?
37:45
SPEAKER_03: Is it something we need to kind of reevaluate?
37:46
SPEAKER_03: And so that's one thing I always appreciate about Mitch is is um we do butt heads sometimes on on different things, and I've given him more gray hair than what he has wanted, but he's always willing to kind of look at the bigger picture and say, man, is this is this the way we should do it to maximize the stretch and get those dollars out there and make money for our TMPA charities, which is something significant, and it's an honor to be a part of because it goes back to you, the members.
38:08
SPEAKER_03: Uh, and so anyway, hand bid.
38:11
SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna put the link right here in this section.
38:14
SPEAKER_03: Get on there, register for conference.
38:15
SPEAKER_03: There's two vendors, for you sponsors and vendors out there that have your own local business, for you cops out there just starting your own business.
38:21
SPEAKER_03: This is a great opportunity for you to come and get a vendor booth and meet and greet in your network and see what you've got to offer.
38:28
SPEAKER_03: So, anyway, that's it for must at Blue Grip Podcast.
38:30
SPEAKER_03: Appreciate you guys tuning in.
38:31
SPEAKER_03: You guys take care, stay safe.
38:33
SPEAKER_03: God bless you, and as always, and God bless Texas.