Meant to write about this earlier in the week but didn’t get to it: Terry McEachern, the Swisher County DA who helped railroad the Tulia defendants, got a very light punishment from the State Bar of Texas for his sins.
An agreement signed in June but not filed until this month concluded that former district attorney Terry McEachern engaged in misconduct during his prosecution of the Tulia drug cases. The agreement suspends McEachern’s license to practice law for two years, but the suspension is probated, meaning McEachern will continue to practice as long as he abides by the agreement.
Which is to say, he got off with no punishment at all. Nothing. For doing this:
The State Bar filed a civil petition against McEachern in March 2004 alleging he engaged in misconduct in the prosecution of the cases.
The petition alleged that McEachern knowingly withheld information about Coleman’s background and bolstered his key witness’ reputation with statements he knew to be false.
McEachern, who denied the allegations in the past, could have faced punishment ranging from censure to disbarment in September, when the case was set to go to trial. McEachern and the State Bar’s disciplinary commission were able to reach an agreement, however.
“The commission, I’m sure, felt they were able to reach an adequate agreed judgment with Mr. McEachern that satisfied the needs of protecting the public,” said Mark Pinckard, projects director with the bar.
According to the agreement, McEachern will have to obey all laws and rules governing attorney conduct and pay $6,225 in attorneys’ fees or his probation will be revoked and the suspension will be activated.
To my mind, this is plea-bargaining a felony down to a parking ticket. I mean, isn’t it a given that every attorney in the state has to “obey all laws and rules governing attorney conduct”? How can that be considered part of a sentence? Where is the acknowledgement that he willfully helped send a bunch of innocent people to jail? If this didn’t cost him his license, what would have?
Rick Casey spells out what McEachern has admitted to doing, and suggests a more appropriate punishment. I’m sorry, but the State Bar dropped the ball on this one.
What did you expect from the state bar, after all, it has allowed Ronnie Earle to run amok for years now without saying a word.
Concerning the Tulia arrests, though, do Rick Casey and the rest of the PC media actually expect us to believe that Coleman just picked these guys off the street and framed them, that they had no involvement in the local drug culture and drug sales network? That they were just “innocent bystanders”, not people involved in selling and using hard drugs that Coleman knew about?
To the contrary, I would guess Coleman set them up and framed them precisely because they were, and probably still are, part of the drug sales and user network in the Tulia area.
Neither Rick Casey nor any other member of the press has the courage — or the intelligence, because it will make a great story — to go to Tulia and investigate Coleman’s “victims” and see if they really are part of the local drug culture and drug sales network.
But there is another way to keep track.
Let’s see how many of Coleman’s “victims” have already gone down on drug and associated burglary, prostitution, and violent crime charges since Coleman’s exposure, and how many will go down on these charges over the next year.
“Innocent victims”? Yeah, right!
ttyler5 wrote:
“To the contrary, I would guess Coleman set them up and framed them precisely because they were, and probably still are, part of the drug sales and user network in the Tulia area.”
Yeah, “I would guess…” pretty much says it all.
You really have no idea of what you’re talking about, do you?
Locutor, I just found your post above, after replying to your previous verbal assault against me at an earlier Kuff thread, in which reply I told you that we have absolutely nothing to discuss.
I am here requesting of the site owner that, if you continue to launch your abusive verbal assaults against me past this point, you be banned from posting at this blogsite.
Further, if your abuse continues, I will contact Yahoo security concerning the abuse you have inflicted on me at this site via their email services, and I will have your email priviledges suspended at yahoo and at any other email service you use.
It is my suugestion we just ignore each other completely from now on, and I would be satisfied with that.
CC via email to Charles Kuffner