Okay.
Carla Wyatt
The criminal case against Harris County’s elected treasurer, Carla Wyatt, will go before a grand jury following the repeated postponement of a hearing aimed at deciding whether her burglary of a vehicle charge should proceed, according to court records.
Bringing the case before a grand jury, whose members predominantly decide on felony cases, shifts the decision behind closed doors rather than airing evidence before a judge in open court.
READ MORE: Harris County treasurer Carla Wyatt arrested, charged with misdemeanor for car burglary
Prosecutors filed the misdemeanor charge against 56-year-old Wyatt following her Dec. 27 arrest in the parking lot of the Forget Me Not restaurant after employees reported seeing her rifling through a colleague’s unlocked vehicle, according to prosecutors. A security guard from the Washington Avenue restaurant confronted Wyatt as police were called.
The treasurer remained in the vehicle as police arrived, said her attorney, Christopher Downey, who argued that although Wyatt showed “unusual behavior,” nothing was stolen and she had no plans to steal anything.
During the treasurer’s initial appearance before Judge Shannon Baldwin in County Criminal Court at Law No. 4, the judge declared the allegations ambiguous enough for a probable cause hearing to determine whether the evidence was sufficient for the case to continue.
The hearing was scheduled for late January, but a cold-weather closure postponed the proceedings until Monday. The hearing did not happen then either, meaning probable cause remains unsettled in Wyatt’s case.
A court scheduling form indicates prosecutors plan to take Wyatt’s case to a grand jury.
“We also often choose to present misdemeanor cases to the grand jury, particularly when the defense is challenging probable cause,” said Damali Keith, a Harris County District Attorney’s Office spokesperson.
The office did not immediately provide data on how often low-level cases are presented to a grand jury or say when Wyatt’s case will be presented. Wyatt is scheduled April 7 to return to court.
Coby DuBose, a defense lawyer who mostly handles misdemeanor cases, said the prosecution’s plan to present Wyatt’s case to a grand jury is unusual. Prosecutors are not statutorily required to bring most low-level cases before grand jurors.
“If I can start a case by just filing it — why on Earth would I jump through a hoop to have a grand jury look at it?” DuBose said. “It makes no sense to have a grand jury check your homework.”
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Another lawyer, Murray Newman, also a former Harris County prosecutor, suggested prosecutors may be treating the case differently because it involves a public official. The grand jury process, Newman said, can be used as “a safety valve to get rid of trash cases and be shielded from public view through grand jury secrecy.”
See here, here, and here for some background. I basically agree with Murray Newman here, but I also think it’s because this case isn’t clear-cut. DA Sean Teare has shown that he isn’t afraid to dismiss charges in a political case he doesn’t think merits prosecution. If his office wants to take the unusual but not unheard of step of presenting this misdemeanor case to a grand jury, something that happens about a dozen times a year per the article, I think that’s reasonable. We’ll know soon enough what those folks think and we’ll go from there.