Grand Jury Somehow Fails To Indict Man Who Shot Deputy During No-Knock, Pre-Dawn Raid For Capital Murder
from the the-system-forgets-to-work dept
This originally was a story I only mentioned in passing while discussing the law enforcement community's growing embrace of no-knock warrants.
On December 19, eight members of Texas’s Burleson County Sheriff’s Department banged open the door of the double-wide trailer rented by 28-year-old Henry Magee and his girlfriend. It was between five and six AM and the deputies, who were there to search for marijuana and stolen weapons, set off at least two flashbang grenades in an attempt to surprise and disorient Magee, their suspect. The leader of the team, Sergeant Adam Sowders, a seven-year veteran of the department, had requested the warrant be “no-knock,” meaning the police could enter the residence without announcing themselves. But it was possibly do to the confusion caused by the sudden entrance of the cops that led to Magee opening fire with a semi-automatic weapon and hitting Sowders. The cop later died, and Magee has been charged with capital murder, which can bring the death penalty in Texas.A squad of officers smash through a person's door (possibly unannounced) pre-dawn and are greeted by gunfire. The surprising thing is that this doesn't happen more often, especially in a state like Texas, where a man's home is often his well-armed castle. But the prosecutor didn't see the deputy's fault in this incident and pursued capital murder charges. Keep in mind, part of what was being sought in the raid was an ultra-dangerous drug that is currently legal in two states. Also keep in mind that the guns they found weren't stolen, but because of the marijuana Magee possessed, the previously legal weapons were now illegal.
In a surprising decision, a Texas grand jury has decided not to indict Henry Magee on capital murder charges.
"This was a terrible tragedy that a deputy sheriff was killed, but Hank Magee believed that he and his pregnant girlfriend were being robbed," Magee's lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, told A.P. "He did what a lot of people would have done. He defended himself and his girlfriend and his home."The district attorney who pursued the capital murder charges against Magee even admitted the evidence against him wasn't solid.
DeGuerin, a well-known defense attorney who has been practicing for half a century, said "he could not immediately remember another example of a Texas grand jury declining to indict a defendant in the death of a law enforcement officer."
"I believe the evidence also shows that an announcement was made," Renken said. "However, there is not enough evidence that Mr. Magee knew that day that Peace Officers were entering his home."Despite this lack of evidence, Julie Renken went ahead and pursued capital murder charges in front of a grand jury, an entity most notable for its willingness to "indict a ham sandwich." The fact that Magee was able to walk away from that charge still remains the exception to the rule. As far as grand juries go, indicting is what they do best. They have it down to a science, as Gideon at A Public Defender points out.
During a single four-hour workday last week, a Mecklenburg County grand jury heard 276 cases and handed down 276 indictments.276 indictments, all in under a half-day. Not a single one of the 276 accused were found not guilty. This is the grand jury system running on all cylinders.
That means the 18 jurors heard evidence, asked questions, weighed whether the charges merit a trial, then voted on the indictments – all at the average rate of one case every 52 seconds.
You read something like that and you just have to laugh. You have to laugh because it’s so improbable and so absurd that it must be true and that it can only happen here, in these United States of America, the best country in the world with the best justice system in the world, because by God, we hate criminals.A grand jury rings up a 276-0 shutout in less time than it takes the average officer worker to get to their lunch break, but when people question whether a true justice system should be giving this much power to an entity that only hears one side of the case (the prosecution's), the supporters point out the rarities, like the one above, that supposedly prove the system (and its 52-second indictments) works.
The biggest obstacle to curbing grand juries (much less eliminating them) is the government itself.
The appeal of the grand jury to the government is obvious: you get to present your allegations to a group of civilians who aren’t in any way equipped to determine the veracity of the charges and who are most likely to side with you.If that description doesn't seem too far removed from the rubber stamp of the FISA court with its non-adversarial approach, there's a good reason for that. Political figures harness voters by vowing to be tough on crime -- and there's no greater crime than terrorism. The best way to pitch a shutout and satisfy constituents demanding a "safer" country/city/neighborhood is to remove the batter from the equation.
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Filed Under: grand jury, no-knock warrant, police abuse, texas
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-Former Judge Who Was Caught Texting Instructions To Prosecutors Now Running For District Attorney Post
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-Texas Deputy Sues 911 Caller For Not 'Adequately Warning' Him Of Potential Danger Or 'Making The Premises Safe'
I'd probably find more amusement if I looked at the Texas tag. But I digress. Such no-knock warrants should be deployed more carefully. Unless there is a strong possibility of evidence purging or something similar they just had to set a perimeter and announce themselves. And the guy was probably even more paranoid, his girl being pregnant and all.
Also, the grand jury issues seem to be another symptom of the unbalanced judicial system in the US that led to serious abuses (ie: Aaron Swartz, mass surveillance and so on). We've been focusing on the Executive issues with the NSA revelations but fact is the judicial system is severely rigged towards the parties with more money.
I personally have no idea how to even start fixing things when all 3 branches are operating in a... sub optimal way..
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Got it right for once
Break into a house, unannounced, like armed robbers in the middle of the night, when there's children and/or a pregnant woman in the house, yeah, don't be surprised if you receive a high caliber welcome.
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Re: Got it right for once
A grand jury is a very different thing from a trial jury, and Tim's apparent lack of understanding on this point made this article painful to read.
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Re: Re: Got it right for once
It's still a jury. It's not a rubber stamp.
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Re: Re: Got it right for once
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Re: Re: Got it right for once
I'm thinking that one of the other commenters down below, Erik Grant, has it right, they didn't want this to come to court, so it wouldn't surprise me if they were intentionally sloppy, hoping that it wouldn't make it past this stage, and could then be swept under the rug.
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Re: Re: Got it right for once
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A government should never be at war with the citizenry, even the criminals.
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Re: Re:Just wishing (also known as praying) wont change anything
I would admonish that one to include,statist, oathbreaking, and traitor in your indeictment of the man!
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Re: Re: Re:Just wishing (also known as praying) wont change anything
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Re: Re: Re: Re:Just wishing (also known as praying) wont change anything
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:Just wishing (also known as praying) wont change anything
You also realize that calling me an LEO officer or apologist (I'm neither) is both an ad hom, and pretty ridiculous in context?
I don't recall writing that, but since you assert it, it must be true. You wouldn't straw man someone on the web, just to have an opportunity to spout vitriol, would you?
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Re: Re: Re:Just wishing (also known as praying) wont change anything
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Re: Re: Re: Re:Just wishing (also known as praying) wont change anything
Folks that have lived in areas that have gone through severe political and econiomic strife have known forever that the most dangerous part of the day is from the front door of their house and their workplace and back.
The Stasi would do well to adopt the same tactics of South American Kidnappers and "Take-Down" the target of their warrant outside the house while the target is not expecting trouble and not ready for it. Less cops would get shot and fewer citizes would be murdered.
If the situation is serious enough to call for a no-knock warrant then taking the subject in to protective custody while searching the site in a way that increases the likleyhood of a no shooting incident, or at least one where ther is no doubt that it is the police, is a good idea.
All I'm saying is if you come in kicking and screaming to someones house, like mine, then the occupant is better off being judged by 12 than carried out by 6.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:Just wishing (also known as praying) wont change anything
I absolutely agree with you on this and I think the grand jury here made the correct decision. Still it's sad that someone had to die.
"If the situation is serious enough to call for a no-knock warrant then taking the subject in to protective custody while searching the site in a way that increases the likleyhood of a no shooting incident, or at least one where ther is no doubt that it is the police, is a good idea."
This reminds me of what I said about Waco when it happened. They didn't need to storm the compound. They should have just watched and arrested him when he left to got to the grocery store or something, but they didn't because they were the ATF damn it! and they can storm the compound if they want to because no one can stop them. They may have been dumbasses that got what they deserved for their stupidity and hubris but still I wouldn't have wished them to die.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:Just wishing (also known as praying) wont change anything
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Obstacles to curbing grand juries
Well, there is that pesky fifth amendment:
"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger"
I am surprised that no one has (yet) suggested "time of ... public danger" as a convenient way around it.
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Re: Obstacles to curbing grand juries
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Re: Obstacles to curbing grand juries
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Peace Officers?
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Re: Peace Officers?
And if you do not understand that means when a peace officer shoots you dead you are at eternal peace with the world.
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Re: Peace Officers?
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Re: Re: Peace Officers?
"But it was possibly do to the confusion"
Should be "due to the confusion".
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Re: Peace Officers?
Hello 1984 doublespeak!
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Re: Peace Officers?
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The judge explains the law to the jury. The prosecutor puts on witnesses and tells the jury what evidence it has against the accused.
The Jury's SOLE duty is to determine whether there is enough evidence for the state to charge the accused. The accused does not put on any evidence. Often the accused is not there, and sometimes does not know he is being indicted. There are no defense attorney's allowed. There is no "guilty or not guilty." It is purely one sided to find whether there is enough evidence to charge a person with a crime. And when you talk about cases, often many cases can be against the same person with the same evidence, or a group of people.
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In theory, perhaps. But in reality, such cases frequently make it through the grand jury.
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Re: Grand Juries
The idea of a grand jury, as noted, is to determine if the state has enough plausible evidence for an indictment to be issued against someone. Grand juries, if the prosecutors are doing their jobs, should return a large percentage as indictments.
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Please note this is not my opinion (I'm nt close enough to criminal justice procedures to really form an opinion on this), rather I'm trying to clarify the article.
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Marijuana is already legal in two states and it won't be long before it's legal in the entire US. Give it a few years.
As for illegal guns I don't really feel there is such a thing personally. I believe the actions of the person with the gun should determine legality. Not the status of the gun itself.
I wanna say "talk about living the dream" but I'm not sure it's appropriate because it is possible, however rare, that the officer killed was a good cop.
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I've served on a Grand Jury
The grand jury's job is simple, look at what's there. Is there enough there to need the further examination of a trial or not. There is no determination of guilt or non-guilt.
As I recall, the time I served one of the cases we weighed was an arson case. There was evidence that the fire was set, there was damage to property. There was a suspect. So we sent it to trial. I think the suspect was proven not guilty. I don't know if they ever found the person that actually set the fire.
In this case, there was apparently not enough evidence to say the shooter knew it was law enforcement breaking down his door. In that case the castle laws take effect. There is no trial.
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Re: I've served on a Grand Jury
Umm, no. They will often seek an indictment even if the evidence is weak, knowing that poor defendants probably can't afford to defend themselves. They will then offer the defendant a "deal" in which they offer to not railroad them to the max if they will just plead guilty without making a fuss.
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It's all a big tragedy, but maybe someone should learn from it, that only because a deputy requests a no-knock warrant, the risks of this should be waged against the crime that the suspect is searched for, and if it's not worth having someone dying from a search warrant, deny no-knock and keep all the citizens safer. Because one thing is sure: Noone would've died because of marijuana consumption or dealing.
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Re: but 52 seconds! to decide whether or not to indict?
And most of the stuff was incredibly obvious. "Person X was caught by the police exiting Business Y at 2am, carrying enough swag to stagger a mule; Person X does not own nor work at Business Y; the door was jimmied with a crowbar; and Person X's fingerprints are all over the crowbar." There may be some completely innocent reason for that, or the police may have bungled various aspects of the arrest to justify a not guilty verdict at a trial; but all the grand jury is concerned about is if charging Person X seemed reasonable (not is it reasonable they are guilty, but reasonable to charge them). And the overwhelming majority of cases were like the above - it's rather obvious Person X was being a bad boy, but all that needs to be proven is that the police weren't just being jerks in charging him.
There were edge cases. And those did involve some reasonable amounts of discussion and requests for more information. But my overwhelming take-away from the experience was that criminals are exceedingly dumb and Ocean's Eleven is fiction, not SOP.
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Re: Re: but 52 seconds! to decide whether or not to indict?
This is unquestionably true. The vast majority of criminal are idiots. If they weren't, they wouldn't be criminals.
Or, as Howard Scott once famously said, "A criminal is a person with predatory instincts without sufficient capital to form a corporation." (But I would replace "capital" with "intelligence".)
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in respectful disagreement
I normally agree with you Mr. Fenderson, but I have to take exception with that second statement. I'm honestly not even sure if that would be true in an ideal world. The definition of a criminal is simply way too broad and subjective, due in no small part to the subjective nature of the laws/rules they're breaking, knowingly or otherwise (and I won't even begin to go into the issues surrounding enforcement).
Furthermore, I personally think that Howard Scott had the better word choice.
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Knock knock
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Why not come when the guy is picking up morning paper in driveway in his pajamas?
Solution is simple: hire PhDs for LEOs, not wannabe Rambo morons.
In this case, victim should sue estate of the LEO.
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That means, he just got GED certifying he can count to 500 all by himself. Prior to that, he had only elementary school finished, obviously.
Do really such people should have access to guns?
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George Orwell was a slacker
A swat team is now called "Peace Officers"?
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Re: George Orwell was a slacker
In Texas, yes. Above them are Navy SEALS, the real experts in detonation of flash bangs.
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Meet military force with military force
He was, essentially, killed by the prosecutors office.
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Re: Meet military force with military force
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Re: Meet military force with military force
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No that's pre-meditated murder. Murder is unjustified homicide with intent to kill.
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The only reason to fail to secure a grand jury indictment is if you don't actually want to succeed, which is what happened here. A cop got shot in Texas. The DA in charge if this case wants to get re-elected without having his opponent say "He sides with criminals who shoot cops." So he gets the best of both worlds here - bring a case to the grand jury so he can say he tried, and lose the case because the guy wasn't really guilty of the crime. By all rights, failing to even secure an indictment is the best possible case because it means the spectacle ends with a whimper rather than a 6 month courtroom circus.
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It's said that where there's smoke there's fire, and people seriously believe this (why?). They especially believe it when it comes to barbecuing the accused before guilt is determined.
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Typos
Second, how old is the lawyer? You said he's been practicing law for half a century, which is 50 years. If he graduated law school and became an attorney when he was 21, is he now 71? Are there many attorneys in their 70's still practicing law?
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Re: Typos
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Re: Typos
I know of at least 7 who are or did. Was explained to me that if you give up the license its gone. And it allows 'em to help family members with traffic tickets.
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grand jury does not decide guilt
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"No-Knock, Pre-Dawn Raids"
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