Josh Tetens and the man who got him elected, both have questionable leadership qualities at best.
OH, Josh runs again soon, hope the defense bar takes their unhappiness and turns it into a decent candidate we can actually respect.
the michael morton act – Google Search
Search Labs | AI Overview
The Michael Morton Act is a Texas law that aims to reduce wrongful convictions by making it easier for criminal defendants to access evidence:
- BackgroundThe act is named after Michael Morton, who was wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife in 1973. After Morton was exonerated in 2011, the Texas Senate passed the Michael Morton Act in 2013.
Withholding evidence is a Brady violation and lawyers Callahan and King are probably pretty happy right now.
Tetens, not so much.
Since Tetens office refuses any kind of discourse or reasonable discussions with those dirty, nasty members of the Defense Bar, this kind of stuff happens.
A violation of the Michael Moton law, well, well, ouchie.
H
Robinson, Texas woman convicted in sex assault of teen granted new trial (kwtx.com)
Robinson, Texas woman convicted in sex assault of teen granted new trial
Published: Oct. 21, 2024 at 5:02 PM CDT|Updated: 50 minutes ago
WACO, Texas (KWTX) – A state district judge on Monday ruled the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office improperly withheld potentially favorable evidence from attorneys representing a former Robinson woman convicted of having sex with a 14-year-old boy during a raucous party at her home.
Judge Susan Kelly of Waco’s 54th State District Court granted a new trial for Stephanie Olivarez, who was convicted in August of sexual assault of a child by jurors who recommended that she be placed on 10 years’ probation.
Olivarez’s attorneys, Robert Callahan and Chris King, filed a motion for new trial after learning the boy’s therapist, complying with a subpoena from the DA’s office, turned her files over to a DA’s office investigator that were not turned over to the defense as required by law.
District Attorney John Tetens continued to assert on Monday that his office never received the records, despite testimony from the therapist, Marjorie Husbands, at a hearing earlier this month that she or her husband turned over the records to Jeff Aguirre, an investigator in Teten’s office, in February 2023.
Evidence from that hearing showed that Amber Aguirre, Aguirre’s wife who also is a DA’s office investigator, filed notice with the court that the subpoena for Husbands’ records had been served.
Jeff Aguirre testified at the hearing on Olivarez’s motion for new trial that he doesn’t remember going to Husbands’ home and said he has no knowledge that those records ever existed in the DA’s office.
“It was abundantly clear at the hearing our office did not receive the doctor’s records,” Tetens said Monday. “We will be immediately appealing to the 10th Court of Appeals.”
He described Husbands’ testimony as “contradictory at best.”
Callahan stopped short of saying the DA’s office knowingly withheld evidence from the defense. However, he questioned how Husbands knew Aguirre’s name if he wasn’t the one she or her husband turned the records over to.
“The court’s overturning of Stephanie’s wrongful conviction is a reflection of how seriously a prosecutor’s duties are to be taken,” Callahan said. “It is an extraordinary measure reserved for circumstances when no other remedy exists. We know it was done thoughtfully here. The law has to mean something when it comes to protecting the rights of our citizens. McLennan County residents should be proud of judges that will follow the law and apply it equally to both sides.”
In awarding the new trial, Kelly cited case law that requires a court to grant a new trial “when the verdict is contrary to the law and the evidence.”
“Further, the Court of Criminal Appeals has held that a trial court may grant a new trial in the ‘interest of justice’ as an independent ground outside of those listed …. when there is a showing that a defendant’s rights were ‘substantially affected.’”
Kelly’s order says the state has a duty to “disclose to a defendant any exculpatory, impeachment, or mitigating document, item or information in the possession, custody, or control of the state that tends to negate the guilt of a defendant.”
Husbands’ notes revealed the boy told her that he was so drunk the night of the party and alleged sexual assault that he has little to no memory of what happened.
Olivarez testified Wednesday that she didn’t know it was illegal to give minors alcohol and told the jury that she was drunk, passed out in her bed and woke up with the boy raping her.
The boy testified that everyone was drunk at the April 19, 2018, party at Olivarez’s former home on Flat Creek Road in Robinson. He said he went to lie down on her bed and she joined him there, undressed and had sex with him.
Olivarez, who dated the boy’s father, also told him not to tell anyone about what happened, he said.
While Kelly placed Olivarez on probation based on the jury’s verdict, Olivarez would face up to 20 years in prison should the judge’s ruling be upheld on appeal and she goes to trial again.
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