Posted 2:24 am Thursday, March 25, 2010
Smith County DA Disputes Allegations Made During Appeals Cases
By DAYNA WORCHEL
Staff Writer
Smith County District Attorney Matt Bingham on Thursday refuted allegations made Wednesday involving prosecution in two Mineola Swinger's Club cases.
Staff Writer
Smith County District Attorney Matt Bingham on Thursday refuted allegations made Wednesday involving prosecution in two Mineola Swinger's Club cases.
Wes Volberding and Jim Huggler made the allegations during oral arguments before the 14th Court of Appeals in Houston on Wednesday on behalf of their two clients who were involved in the Mineola Swinger's Club cases.
The proceedings were conducted by teleconference in the Smith County courthouse.
Both attorneys have each filed an appeal on behalf of their clients, Patrick "Booger Red" Kelly and Jamie Pittman who were convicted in 2008 of running a sex club, where children allegedly performed sex acts in front of an audience.
Bingham said his office turned over all evidence they had collected during their investigations of both Kelly and Pittman to defense attorneys before the trials began.
He especially took issue with Volberding and Huggler's allegations that the state had violated what is known as the Brady Rule. The rule states that the prosecution has a legal obligation to turn over to the defense any exculpatory, or favorable, evidence to the defense.
"Our job is to seek justice -- we have a duty to turn that over to the defense if we have it," Bingham said.
Both the defense attorneys and the prosecution knew going into the trials about the case against John Cantrell in California, Bingham said, and there was no violation of the Brady Rule.
Cantrell, the foster father of the two children who made the original outcries, was being investigated in California for allegedly molesting other children who had been in his care.
Bingham said he asked Wood County District Attorney Jim Wheeler in June 2008 for information about the Cantrell investigation in California and never received it. He said he subpoenaed Wheeler for the information in August 2008 but still never received it. Bingham said he didn't know why Wheeler refused to provide his office with that information, but provided it to Thad Davidson, the original trial attorney for Kelly.
"The defense attorneys in this case don't like the fact that Judge Jack Skeen Jr. was a former prosecutor here, but he was always fair -- the rulings were not always what I like, but it was always fair," Bingham said.
Defense attorneys, he said, can always file appeals, and usually do so because they don't like the outcome of the original trial for their clients. This appeal for Kelly and Pittman do not necessarily mean that their cases would be overturned by the 14 th Court of Appeals, Bingham said. If the case is overturned, Bingham said his office would file its own appeal with the Supreme Court of Texas.
"You can call me or my office anything you want, but don't attack me or the integrity of my office -- we did not withhold anything and turned everything we had over to the defense several months before the trial," Bingham said. He added that in most cases, prosecutors don't turn over such evidence to the defense until the day of the trial.
"The defense can file these appeals, and they are not founded," he said.
Bingham also does not like the fact that the appeal is being heard before an appeals court in Houston because of the backlog in the 12th Court of Appeals in Tyler.
"Those justices weren't elected by the people of Smith County, and they do not have any accountability here," he said.
