Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by FireBeyond 76 days ago
There’s a judge down in Texas, Dallas area I believe, who is in social media a lot because he will excoriate prosecutors who bring bs in to his court room. He’s not soft on crime but hard on rights and process. If a defendant did the wrong thing, he will have the appropriate amount of sympathy, down to zero. At times he will tell them, we all know you got lucky here, do better. But he won’t let prosecutors slate by on garbage charges or statements or investigations by police. Which leads to my primary point at least for this discussion in particular:

To me the scariest part of this as a process is how many times (I’d casually estimate at least 75%) it is blindingly obvious that the prosecutor has not read the statement of charges or officer statements until everyone is in front of the judge. I get on one hand this judge seems to often be handling probable cause hearings but so many of these should never have resulted in any paperwork being turned in to the prosecution, let alone anyone having to show up in court.

2 comments

Scary process is an understatement, especially because I was facing a domestic violence charge.

Long story short, emotional abusive partner got drunk and verbally combative, despite my attempts to de-escalate. When nothing worked I went into my bedroom and locked the door. She started pounding on the door and demanded her things. I gave them to her and told her she needs a ride home she no longer welcome. She verbally abused and provoked me for 10 minutes before getting in her car. Took the keys, called 911. She grabbed me causing us both to fall a few minutes before the cops arrived and told them I threw her to the ground. We both had a couple scapes so they arrested us both.

Interfered with the 911 call, filed a false police report, assaulted me, caused property damage. She got charged with class c assault only and a dismissal. I felt like I was seen as guilty until proven innocent.

Fortunately I recorded all her verbal abuse (prosecution tried to use it against me and brought in DV expert to explain both her conduct and my 911 call as typical in IPV cases)

Fortunately the jury didn't buy it. I was literally being threatened with violence in my own home for telling her to leave. Between that and the bodycam statements contradicting her testimony I was shocked that they didn't drop the charges or offer a favorable plea deal.

The judge was absolutely fair, prosecutor bent on punishment, alleged victim was attempting to ruin my life (as captured in my audio)

Whew!

In the end the claims were so obviously fabricated that my attorney made no defense. It was clear that the accuser was not credible.

Perjury was provable. No consequences for her. This happened in Brazoria county

It's fascinating to me that judges are elected in Texas, and what's more, run as members of a political party.