CHENEY / GONZALEZ on Trial in Texas ( Update )
Posted November 20th, 2008 by sentinel
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A Texas judge has set a Friday arraignment for Vice President Dick Cheney, former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and others named in indictments accusing them of responsibility for prisoner abuse in a federal detention center.
Cheney, Gonzales and the others will not be arrested, and do not need to appear in person at the arraignment, Presiding Judge Manuel Banales said.
In the latest bizarre development in the case, the lame-duck prosecutor who won the indictments was a no-show in court Wednesday. The judge ordered Texas Rangers to go to Willacy County District Attorney Juan Guerra's house, check on his well-being and order him to court on Friday.
Half of the eight high-profile indictments returned Monday by a Willacy County grand jury are tied to privately run federal detention centers in the sparsely populated South Texas county. The other half target judges and special prosecutors who played a role in an earlier investigation of Guerra.
One indictment charges Cheney and Gonzales with engaging in organized criminal activity. It alleges that the men neglected federal prisoners and are responsible for assaults in the facilities.
The grand jury accused Cheney of a conflict of interest because of his influence over the county's federal immigrant detention center and his substantial holdings in the Vanguard Group, which invests in private prison companies.
The indictment accuses Gonzales of stopping an investigation into abuses at the federal detention center.
An attorney for the private prison operator The GEO Group filed motions accusing Guerra of "prosecutorial vindictiveness."
One motion said Guerra had hijacked "the grand jury process and disregarded the requirements of the Code of Criminal Procedure designed to protect defendants' due process rights."
Some attorneys argued that Banales may not have the authority to schedule an arraignment because the indictments were invalid. One lawyer said Guerra never should have been allowed to present the cases to the grand jury because at least four of the indictments deal with people who had some role in the investigation of his office last year.
"He is the witness, the victim and the prosecutor," said the attorney for Mervyn Mosbacker Jr., a former U.S. attorney who was appointed special prosecutor to investigate Guerra.
District Clerk Gilbert Lozano, District judges Janet Leal and Migdalia Lopez, and special prosecutors Mosbacker and Gustavo Garza, a longtime political opponent of Guerra, were all indicted on charges of official abuse of official capacity and official oppression.
The grand jury tied all of their charges to an earlier investigation of Guerra's office.
Banales dismissed an indictment against Guerra last month charging him with extorting money from a bail bond company and using his office for personal business. An appeals court had earlier ruled that a special prosecutor was improperly appointed to investigate Guerra.
After Guerra's office was raided as part of the investigation early last year, he camped outside the courthouse in a borrowed camper with a horse, three goats and a rooster. He threatened to dismiss hundreds of cases because he believed local law enforcement had aided the investigation against him.
Guerra has been in office nearly 20 years, but was defeated in the March Democratic primary.
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update
Prosecutor who had Cheney indicted yells at judge
The Associated Press
Fri, Nov 21, 2008 (11:42 a.m.)
A county prosecutor who brought indictments this week against Vice President Dick Cheney and others pounded his fist and shouted at the judge Friday during a routine hearing.
Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra asked Presiding Judge Manuel Banales to recuse himself from the case, which alleges abuse at federally run prisons.
Attorneys for the vice president and other defendants leapt to their feet in objection as Guerra pounded the table and accused Banales of giving the defendants special treatment.
"Now all of a sudden there is urgency!" Guerra shouted. "Eighteen months you kept me indicted through the election."
Guerra lost his bid for re-election in the March primary and will leave office in January. He had been indicted in last year on charges he extorted money from a bail bond company and used his office for personal business, but the charges were dismissed last month.
Guerra said the judge was wrong to allow motions to quash the indictments to be heard before the defendants were arraigned.
Banales called a recess to contact the chief justice of the state Supreme Court for suggestions on how to proceed, and ordered Guerra, who had slipped out once during the hearing, to remain in the courthouse.
Guerra first said "I will not obey that order," but then agreed to stay if the judge asked him respectfully.
Curious residents packed the well-worn pews of the Willacy County Courthouse's only courtroom for Friday's hearing. The defendants were not required to appear in person.
Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales were indicted in connection with privately run federal detention centers in Willacy. In particular, it alleges that Cheney's personal investment in the Vanguard Group, which invests in private prison companies, gives him culpability in alleged prisoner abuse.
Guerra also indicted judges and special prosecutors who played a role in the investigation of him.
T. Gerald Treece, a constitutional law specialist and professor at the South Texas College of Law in Houston, this week questioned Guerra's jurisdiction.
"You can't have district attorneys across the country bringing charges against federal officials," Treece said. And even in a federal probe, Cheney and Gonzales have a "qualified privilege" that would protect them so long as they were acting within their jobs, Treece sai
~Mikael / Peace, love, Light and unity ~
The Untouchables
South Texas county indicts Cheney, Gonzales
By Alex Lantier
A grand jury in southern Texas' Willacy County has indicted US Vice President Dick Cheney and former US attorney general Alberto Gonzales on state charges of misconduct involving private prisons. The indictment, brought by District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra, also names several local officials.
The indictment alleges conflict of interest stemming from an $85 million investment by Cheney in the Vanguard Group, a company that holds shares in private companies running federal detention centers, noting that Cheney had influence over the federal contracts awarded to the prison companies held by the Vanguard Group. The indictment also names Cheney as responsible for "at least misdemeanor assaults" at these prisons. The indictment accuses Gonzales of intervening, as US Attorney General in 2006, to stop an investigation into abuses at private prisons.
As of this writing, the presiding judge has declined to sign the indictment, halting any further action on the case.
Willacy County hosts a series of federal, state and county prisons, some of which are outsourced to private prison companies such as MTC and the GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut). These prisons have a long history of corruption and misconduct. In 2005 Guerra obtained guilty pleas from three former county commissioners while investigating bribery charges related to MTC's federal prison contracts.
In 2006, a Willacy County jury ordered GEO Group to pay a $47.5 million fine in a civil judgment on a 2001 case, when Wackenhut guards allowed other inmates to beat inmate Gregorio de la Rosa Jr. to death with padlocks stuffed into socks.
Guerra told the Associated Press the current indictment is a "national issue" and that experts from around the country had testified before the grand jury. The indictment reportedly refers to the de la Rosa case.
The indicted officials brushed off the charges. Agence France-Presse wrote, "Cheney's spokeswoman [Megan Mitchell] declined to comment because his office had not yet received a copy of the indictment." Mitchell arrogantly added, "Let's wait and see if we even receive one.
"
Gonzales' attorney George Terwilliger III said, "This is obviously a bogus charge on its face, as any good prosecutor can recognize," adding that he hoped Texas authorities would stop "this abuse of the criminal justice system.
"
Michael Cowen--the attorney for State Senator Eddie Lucio, who is also named in the indictment--issued a statement declaring, "It is a shame that Guerra has chosen to dedicate his energy to fighting with his fellow public servants, rather than actually prosecuting criminals." In a revealing comment, Cowen added that Guerra dismissed so many cases that local officials disparagingly called him "The Great Emancipator"--a common name of respect for President Abraham Lincoln, whose Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves after the US Civil War. Cowen added that his office was planning to file a motion to quash the indictment.
The pose of incredulity and aggrieved innocence struck by Cheney and Gonzales reeks of hypocrisy and bad faith. Far from clearing them, their record as members of the Bush administration suggests that accusations of misconduct directed against them deserve due consideration.
Cheney is hated in the US and around the world for framing and executing the Bush administration's policy of aggressive war, most notably in Iraq, in flagrant violation of international law. His longstanding policy is to shield himself from public oversight, notably evading Congressional attempts to obtain records of his 2001 Energy Task Force meetings on Iraq with the grotesque claim that his office is not part of the executive branch.
As for Gonzales, he resigned as Attorney General in disgrace last year, after refusing to answer Congressional inquiries into the Department of Justice's improper firings of US attorneys. As White House counsel during the first Bush administration, he played a key role in promoting the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program and helped draft legal memoranda arguing that the Geneva Convention's provisions were "quaint" and need not be applied to Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners. Gonzales also requested the "torture memo" that defined torture so narrowly as to permit US forces to use abusive interrogation methods banned by US and international law.
District Attorney Guerra, on the other hand, has been the continuing target of a campaign of official harassment, facing bogus charges of extorting money from a bail bond company and using his office for personal business.
In March 2007 Guerra was jailed during a grand jury investigation of these charges. Two special prosecutors were appointed in the investigation: former US attorney Mervyn Mosbacker and Gus Garza, who ran against and lost to Guerra for the position of District Attorney in 1992.
Since 1996, notes the Harlingen, Texas Valley Morning Star, "Guerra has won three elections, largely drawing support from working-class residents." However, Guerra lost the 2008 Democratic primary elections.
An appeals court later ruled that the special prosecutors were improperly appointed to investigate Guerra, and last month Judge Manuel Banales dismissed the indictments altogether.
I had high hopes when I read this also,
I had high hopes when I read this also but nothing is going to come of it from this exact case for a couple of reasons. First a State district attorney cannot prosecute Cheney or Gonzalez because of the Supremecy Clause in the Constitution. Only a Federal DA opponented by the DOJ can prosecute a Federal official due to the Supremecy Clause. Secondly the State DA that is prosecuting them is currently under corruption charges himself and he has been voted out of office a couple of weeks ago during the election. There will be a new DA in that district come this Spring, so I just don't see much coming from this. I have seen this though on several MSM sites like ABC news and FOX so I do think it is helpful that people are starting to plant the seeds in the minds of everyday America that these criminals need prosecuting and maybe enough pressure will get the DOJ involved. I find it funny that these criminals will hide behind the Supremecy Clause when they need it but will piss on the Constitution when it gets in the way of their plans.
The clause
Does the clause in any way stop any person who suffered because of their crimes..from filing suit..even if that person themselves was/is doing time for any crime? If not..there is a way...Civil courts...I do not believe any of them are ammune fron Civil Action. If they are..then that in itself is another crime.
Freedom is another way to God...A corrupt government is a straight way to hell.
I hope
..this is just the start....I wonder what motions the lawyers for Ramos and Compean will bring now? Those men are in prison for DOING THEIR JOBS. Their lives are in danger every day. And their families struggle every day to make ends meet. The children without their fathers..the wives without their husbands...and their parents have to watch their sons suffering.
For those of you who do not know the story..because MSM (with the exception of Lou Dodds) will not cover the truth about it..and they sweep it under the now lumpy rug.
Here is a good start to learn more.
2 Border Patrol agents face 20 years in prison
Freedom is another way to God...A corrupt government is a straight way to hell.