Yet another lesson in Semantics, Abram Harker Jeffs Trial begins

As I have observed before (here or elsewhere), it's what you call it. The San Angelo Standard-Times isn't trying to prejudice the Jury, they're just naming the statute violated. (I note that when I just tried not name the motion granted at Wikipedia, I got run off.) The headline on the story reads:

"Sexual assault of child trial set to begin today." The story goes on to mention Abram could get 99 years and recalls the basic outline of the raid narrative:

"Evidence gathered against the FLDS men came from an April 2008 raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Schleicher County. Law enforcement personnel searched for a woman who had called saying that she was being abused at the ranch. The authorities now believe the call to have been a hoax.

More than 400 children were put into protective custody from the ranch during their search, but they were returned weeks afterward at the order of an appellate court.

Authorities collected trailer-loads of evidence, papers, records from various buildings on the ranch. The state also collected DNA evidence, which has been used at each trial to show that the accused men fathered children by their underage victims.

FLDS defense counsel has tried to suppress the evidence gathered from the ranch on grounds that the search warrant was improper. Defense lawyers also have tried to quash indictments against the FLDS men because they say the grand jury selection process didn’t represent Schleicher County’s Hispanic population proportionately."

And again, the phrase repeated in the media like a mantra; "Authorities now believe the call to have been a hoax." Once in a while a reporter slips up and says "the call WAS a hoax," but no one will do the reporting.

It's like make-up. De-emphasize that which you don't find attractive, accentuate your best points. Anyone reading the San Angelo Standard-Times article, who is also part of the unsequestered jury, will "know" that Abram Harker Jeffs is charged with pulling his phallus out of his pants, and beating a baby girl with it. The fact that she is now an adult, didn't assist in the prosecution, and won't isn't in the headline.

The reasonable speculation that the call may have actually been arranged, is also not in the article.

If Abram's trial goes much longer than any of the others, I will be surprised, though I am hearing rumors of some new wrinkle. Most of the "wrinkles" so far have been set ups for later appeals.

How, as a God Fearing Juror, can you NOT convict a man charged with using his penis as an assault weapon against a "child?" That's why they named the crime the way they did. It's inflammatory and prejudicial. Ask "Booger Red."

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Mineola Evidence Missing (Stolen/Lost/Destroyed?)

Get a load of this. If the evidence is embarrassing to Texas Sex Prosecutions, it, um becomes "UnEvidence."

The Tyler Morning Telegraph - "(Dennis Boyd Pittman's Defense Attorney Jason) Cassel wants Child Protective Services to release copies of the tapes to him to see if it might help his client. But Jason Gillentine, a CPS supervisor, testified that the tapes Cassell is requesting do not exist and he does not know what happened to them."

That was two weeks ago. Three days after that, the local TV Station reports on the goings on:

KETK/NBC-Tyler - "CPS says they don’t know where they are, and Judge Skeen says only that the defense is entitled to them, if they exist."

"IF they EXIST?" Is this code speak for "If we can't find them then tough luck?" Bill Medvecky is promising to comment on this story, which he is more intimately familiar with, than I am.

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And they say it's not nice, to point....

But I'm going to do it anyway.

There's an article out in Texas Monthly, and "Grits" has something to say about it.

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"Texas Monthly" and their take on the "Mineola Swingers" prosecution

The full article can be found here.

"The DA in (Wood) County, where the building is located, says nothing happened here at all."

The proximity of the Newspaper office to that of the "Swingers" club is significant. They were right next door, which is what prompted writing the column that more or less set this controversy off.

Remember, this is important because Texas Ranger Philip Kemp is involved. Up to his neck.

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KETK NBC 56 Tyler Texas' take on the Mineola Swingers Story

They use the word "Bombshell."

Bingham retorted, "They can say Matt Bingham's a bald-headed ass, but when they challenge my integrity, that makes me mad."

Methinks the DA protest too much.

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More on Mineola

With the caveat that I do not know the case well, and can't come close to evaluating the guilt or innocence of those involved, here's the story run in the Tyler Morning Telegraph today. The Judge is expressing some degree of skepticism from the tone of this story:

"Justice Hedges also focused on the fact that five children were called to testify in the original trial, when the original two who made the outcries would have sufficed".

Again, the similarity to this case and YFZ is the mystifying failure to go with what would have worked better, and instead running up the number of supposed victims. The Judge seems to think that if the prosecution had just stuck to the first two "outcries," things would have gone better for the prosecution. This makes me wonder about the pathology of Law Enforcement that is involved.

Are they competing to get to a prosecution first?

Are they trying to up their "rep" in the case with more salacious details thereby furthering their careers?

I mention this because a less spectacular approach to YFZ it seemed, would have sufficed, yet in this case the Judge seems to be pointing to, bare minimum, excess. Five kids instead of two which in my mind corresponds to the number of "underage pregnant teenage girls" that were "found" initially at YFZ.

I continue to point out that the cause for going into the ranch seemed silly to me. Why not just go in on a suspicion of Bigamy and list a bunch of places to search and then "Seek until ye shall find?" Instead there is a big splashy raid with horrific allegations (who can forget the "Sex Bed") and now an endangered prosecution.

Does Texas routinely gin up the charges so as to make any potential juror afraid to acquit or give lowered sentences? Is it all about trying the case, before trying the case?

"Wes" Volberding:

"The briefs allege that the Smith County District Attorney’s office concealed vital information pointing to the actual innocence of the six adults involved in the case, and that Judge Skeen has applied different rules in this trial than Texas allows," he said.

"The owners of the club, Russ and Sherry Adams, told the Tyler prosecutors that no children ever set foot in their club," Volberding said.

"The prosecutors believed them and let them go, then kept that information to themselves without telling the defense lawyers," he said.

The original source of the accusation, is questionable:

"Smith County prosecutors also concealed the fact that one of the foster parents of the two children who made the original outcries, John Cantrell, was being investigated in California for molesting other children who had been in his care.

Volberding also alleges that prosecutors held onto recorded statements in which the children say that nothing ever happened to them, and no molestation ever occurred."

Thad Davidson, who was the original attorney of record for the defense said he would be: "surprised if the case was not flipped."

"Jim Huggler, who served as both the original trial attorney, and is now the appellate attorney for Jamie Pittman, another defendant in the case, filed his appeal based on the introduction of other offenses not related to the indictment of his client in the original trial.

Huggler also said, like Volberding, that the state concealed the tapes of the children who said nothing ever happened to them."

There was no mention of the unprecedented "Amicus Brief" filed by the Wood County DA, contradicting the Smith County DA, in the Tyler Morning Telegraph story.

The story has also been covered by "Grits for Breakfast," and by the "Texas Monthly." As mentioned before, Ranger Philip Kemp is in it, up to his neck. Of course Bill Medvecky has been all over it.

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Kaboom? "Mineola Swingers Club" conviction fuse starts burning...

This is something that Bill Medvecky has been following, and it looks like the Volcano is about to blow:

KYTX TV (CBS 19) - "The Mineola Swinger's Club convictions could be overturned. Jamie Pittman, Shauntel Mayo and Patrick Kelly were convicted of sexually exploiting children for profit. All three are serving life sentences for their role in the Mineola Swinger's Club."

The original story is doubtless somewhere else, but I thought I would treat you to a "treatment" similar to that of our FLDS friends, from the website People you'll see in Hell:

"Investigators discovered some pretty upsetting things that had happened, things that the children were able to reveal once their contact with the adults involved was eliminated and the kids realized that they wouldn’t have to suffer any longer. During the trial of 36-year-old Jamie Pittman, the first of the gang to be brought to trial, the full scope of what went on at the Mineola Swingers’ Club was revealed.

Jurors were treated to a two and a half hour videotaped interview with Texas Ranger Sergeant Phillip Kemp, the oldest victim and her then-7-year-old brother. Their new foster mother was also there to help the kids feel a bit more comfortable.

During the videotaped interview, the girl was very cooperative, drawing a diagram and describing the inside of the club that the Mineola Swingers’ Club occupied. She described how there were two guards standing inside the front door. She mentioned how 45-year-old 'Dennis' – who turned out to be Jamie Pittman’s older brother, Dennis Boyd Pittman – would sit at the front desk and collect money from people who came into the club to watch the movies of the children performing sexual acts."

But something is happening in Texas, that is nearly or completely unprecedented. One District Attorney has turned, on another.

"(The) Wood County District Attorney (has) faxed (70 pages of paperwork) directly to the appellate court. It's called an Amicus Brief. It essentially contradicts what the Smith County District Attorney's office is telling the court of appeals. 'I've never heard of an instance where one elected District Attorney directly contradicts what another elected district attorney is telling a court of appeals. I've never heard that happen,' concluded (Patrick Kelly's attorney Wes) Volberding."

Have you noticed something though, in one of the quotes above?

Who is in the middle of all this?

That would be Texas Ranger Philip Kemp, who now may be shown to have participated in some way, in yet another case of false testimony. He's in the chain of investigators that is "investigating......."

....Rozita Swinton.

I'm also going to say that Bill has been on this, all along. Nice unbiased picture of Patrick, don't you think?

This is a lot like the McMartin case.

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