Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. She didnt even know he was suffering from thrombosis until she discovered theyd moved him to the medical unit in Galveston. But when her first financial report was due in mid-January, the Secretary of States office told her they didnt have her listed as a candidate. Texas Commission on Judicial Selection Final Report, 2020. Per 100,000 residents in the state of Texas, there were 438 violent crimes and 2,562 property crimes according to World Population Review. As far as I know, everybody had Wootens back. He says he agreed to do consulting work on behalf of both Stacy and Dave for pay and that any advice he gave them with regard to parental rights he was glad to provide for free. During the break, White approached Shook and offered 10 years probation if Wooten would waive her right to appeal. Her law license was suspended, so she worked as a paralegal and started building a mediation and trial consulting business. To be eligible to run for a district court judge seat, you must be a citizen of the United States and Texas, be aged 25 to 74, be a resident of the district for two years, and be a practicing lawyer or judge for a total of at least four years. I will spend the next six months and countless hours conducting interviews and reviewing hundreds of pages of court pleadings, testimony transcripts, and FBI investigation notes. Known as Hang Them All Sandoval, he had an abysmal approval rating among members of the local bar. So I had to scramble, do some FedExing, get some paperworkI had copies of everything, Wooten says. Witnesses appeared to have been badgered, and despite the numerous grand juries, there never appeared to be any evidence of a crime. What followed is the unbelievable, epic tale of. You get arrested, they take your TV, they take your cash. With respect to legal corruption, Kentucky is the most corrupt state followed by Illinois and Nevada while Massachusetts is the least corrupt state followed Michigan, Oregon, and Vermont. After the decision in Daves case, faced with two entirely different results from the same set of facts, the State filed a Petition for Discretionary Review with the Court of Criminal Appeals, the court of last resort for all criminal matters in Texas. During voir dire, when the attorneys and the judge went into chambers, he says he found himself alone in a room of 100 or more potential jurors. Judge of the 429th | 2009 present, Greg Willis, (husband of Jill Willis) The $150,000 that Stacy paid Spencer from January 2008 to March 2008 was all deposited in Spencers joint checking account with his wife. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ). It generally requires a video, or a written letter or text, or a wiretapped phone conversation. He knew unseating a Democratic judge in Texas wouldnt get attention; he needed to challenge a Republican. According to a Dallas Morning News article published at the time, the judge also found that Jennifer had alienated the girls with false accusations against their father. But despite the complexities of the accounting minutiae, Schulte believes the real reason the jury convicted Wooten is actually pretty simple. He wanted them all held accountable. She figured it was just petty payback from a sore loser, not the harbinger of a scorched-earth campaign to unseat her. Terms run for four years, and there are no term limits. I remember going home thinking, What did I do? Dave had been involved in an ongoing contentious custody dispute with his ex-wife, Jennifer, in Sandovals court. You have to mean to steal. Hes in Dallas on business. So my attention was drawn to Collin County, because its the reddest county in the reddest state, Spencer says. She says she used Spencers services before and long after the dates at issue. Judge of the 380th | 2009 2011, Harry White After serving as an NCO in the Army in the 1970s, he became a CPA, got his M.B.A. at SMU, and went on to become the CFO of i2 Technologies Inc. He seemed to believe that they must have cost an exorbitant amount, and he suggested that they were paid for with secret funds paid to Spencer, her media consultant, by an unidentified third party. Harry White currently has a law practice in Fort Worth. (LogOut/ What followed is the unbelievable, epic tale of the craziest case in the history of jurisprudence. Starting in July 2008, Sandoval sent a flurry of correspondence on judicial letterhead to Milner in the DAs office, alleging that something was fishy with Wootens expenditures for radio advertising. The ultra-right conservatives here will hate you, they told her. For district courts where the population is more than 1 million, individual contributions are limited to $5,000, law firm and their member contributions are limited to $30,000, and PAC contributions are limited to $52,500 per court. He was a young lawyer when he met Wooten in the summer of 2008, only a few years out of law school. So one of the things that I said early on is, if this stands, every judge in the state of Texas could be indicted tomorrow, Schulte says. His next stop was the Collin County Democratic Party, which told him that Wooten was talking about running for Sandovals seat. 21. Yet Sandoval had agreed to let Hythiam Inc., the L.A.-based biotech firm behind the drug (which was founded by a former junk bond salesman for Michael Milken), use his courtroom for clinical research trials. He never looked at that as a failure. If he could unseat one who had taken a bad position on parental rights, he thought, maybe he could finally get some traction. Corrupt Texas Governor Greg Abbott is the poster child for corrupt Republicans' sellout to the fossil fuel industry. I thought thats what we were there for., The district attorney at the time was John Roach Sr., a white-haired Air Force veteran who preferred to be addressed as Judge Roach in recognition of his previous two decades on the bench, having taken the opposite approach to the usual legal career progression. They indicted Judge Wooten under regular bribery, where the person brings an envelope full of $10,000 cash, gives it to the judge the day before the hearing, and goes, Youre going to take care of what Im doing, right? Wink, wink. John Cornyn and Greg Abbott were running unopposed for the Supreme Court of Texas. Willis, however, was never indicted. The 380th Judicial District Court in Collin County was created in 1996. Former Chief of the Special Crimes Division of the CCDAO. District courts are the general jurisdiction trial courts in Texas. This case, like so many others brought by Roachs office, had nothing to do with truth. It had been that way for more than 160 years. They just chose not to accept it. I can help people write appeal bonds. She was friends with Peter Schulte, a local criminal defense attorney and former cop, so she gave him a call. The Collin County trials, however, ended when Wooten was elected. If you don't know who Shaun is, you can find earlier segments here . Schulte now lives with his partner, Brett, in West Arvada, Colorado, between Boulder and Denver. With the writing on the wall, Palmer settled the case with Collin Countys insurance company for $600,000 in January 2022. Now that being said, when I got arrested and bonded out, in the next year, my business tripled, Walpole says. There was nothing left for her to do but wrap up her practice and order her robe. I could be at a judges fundraiser Saturday night writing him up to a $2,500 check and then appear in his courtroom on Monday arguing a motion. Here is the cast of characters that you will be reading the most about: First Assistant District Attorney Brandon Baade-A man whose physical unattractiveness is only surpassed by his lack of intelligence and moral bankruptcy, but has somehow tricked the people in the courthouse that he is brilliant and that they have to heed every bit of horrible advice that he gives, even though it took him 3 years to pass the bar exam after graduating law school from the LESS THAN PRESTIGIOUS Regent University Law School. Justice in Collin County was hard to come by if you werent part of the club. Write to [emailprotected]. Attempting to behave professionally and not accede to political influence . She never had less than $36,000 cash in a bank account. That for this money, youre going to do X.. Governor Orders Major Election Investigation on Most Corrupt County in Texas. In a daze, she followed her lawyers, Peter Schulte and Toby Shook, to the attorney-client conference room for a 10-minute break before sentencing. The Addison-based criminal defense attorney thrives on the challenge and plays to win. Shortly thereafter, when she stopped by her bank, they told her they were going to have to close her account because they had received grand jury subpoenas for her bank records. As part of the job, he started getting involved in legislative initiatives and marches on Capitol Hill. Theres another legal issue mentioned in Whites sentencing document, however, that cuts to the heart of the matter. Both indictments were thrown out; the judge in Bowles case noted that the sheriff had been prosecuted for behavior that, even if true, did not constitute a criminal offense. I mean, he found us a lobbyist who is a great lobbyist. The laws regarding selecting grand juries have changed. From 2015 to 2020, the Texas Rangers completed more than 560 public corruption case investigations, but only 67 of those cases have been prosecuted, according to DPS data analyzed by . And he had 162 years of history proving that his 464-vote margin entitled him to what was essentially a lifetime appointment. But Milner figured he could cut the police department out of the equation on high-profile cases, doing his own investigations within the confines of the grand jury so no one would know what they were up to. Maine Wooten sentenced him to treatment. The controversial course of treatment, which a study in the scientific journal Addiction determined doesnt work better than a placebo, could cost up to $15,000 per person and didnt have FDA approval. (House Bill 2150 abolished the practice in 2015.). Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. No spam, ever. The AGs office missed it, too. The usual process is for the police to do their investigation and make an arrest, and then they turn the case over to the DAs office. He says the first he heard of the unpaid bill was when White raised it as a gotcha moment at trial; he believes it was paid as soon as the issue was known. 402n District Judge Brad McCampbell-A man who got his job only because the people of Wood County were fed up with the CORRUPTION of his predecessor former District Judge Jeff Fletcher, so they gave him a chance by electing him to replace Fletcher and he has done nothing but slap those citizens in the face at every chance he gets by doing whatever immoral deed Brandon Baade tells him to do. It had numerous replies. Two were in Fort Worth, but they werent up for reelection. This is the introduction to this website, which will be all about how a small urban Texas county (Wood County) allowed smalltime corruption among its public servants to go unchecked for decades, until it has finally ended up with UNBRIDLED CORRUPTION from the top (402nd District Judge Brad McCampbell, District Attorney Angela Albers and Texas Ranger John Vance) to the bottom (Wood County Sheriff Kelly Cole and his deputies, local police chiefs, county constables, CPS caseworkers, CPS Judge Deane Loughmiller, and the defense attorneys that are supposed to be fighting for the people that they are sworn to defend), and what the CITIZENS OF WOOD COUNTY are doing, and need to do be doing, to take back the power and control of the county that rightly belongs to them. He tried reaching out to people he knew in the Collin County DAs office, but they were tight-lipped about the secret grand jury proceedings. And then there were the lawyers. She adjusted her calendar, found something to wear, and got to work. But since the State Commission on Judicial Conduct never removed her, she technically remained the elected judge on the 380th until the end of December 2012. That didnt pan out, but Spencer was able to help with other company matters that he found useful. She said, Do you want to be right or do you want to be free? Wooten knew that if she were sentenced to more than 10 years, she would not be entitled to an appeal bond; she would go straight to prison without seeing her kids. He and his wife are divorced but, he says, amicably so. Texas Crime Statistics. I couldnt tell you. Neither was interested. It was because the jurors couldnt believe the way judges are elected in Texas. Ever. Dave Cary had already seen a series of judges do 180s in his child custody case. Of course, those are some of the most populated states in the . Texas . 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