courts Archives

‘No fear of consequences’: Bail was too low for Amazon worker who threatened mass shooting, San Antonio police chief says

Police Chief William McManus took to Twitter this week to criticize the “low bail” set by a magistrate judge in the case of a San Antonio man accused of threatening to shoot up a local Amazon delivery station.

Rodolfo Aceves, 19, was arrested last week and charged with making a terroristic threat. Authorities say he threatened to attack an Amazonlocation on the South Side and a school.

Aceves, an Amazon subcontractor, also said he considered Salvador Ramos, the 18-year-old who shot and killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, an idol.

“Officers wasted no time arresting a man who not only planned to carry out a mass shooting at an Amazon warehouse, but also openly sung the praises of the Uvalde gunman,” McManus said on Twitter. “He was given a low bail and was released right after he was arrested.”

“All the mass shootings that have happened recently, and we’ve got a guy who’s threatening to do the same and he’s back out on the street?” he said.

After Aceves was arrested on June 27, Magistrate Judge Marilisa Janssen set bail at $50,000. That means Aceves likely only had to pay about 10 percent — or $5,000 — through an agreement with a bail bondsman to be released from jail. Some bail bondsmen require even less.

Alternatively, he could have paid the bail amount in full.

As a condition of Aceves’ bond, Janssen required him to be placed on house arrest, wear a GPS monitor, and submit to regular drug and alcohol testing, according to court records. She also prohibited him from possessing any firearms or weapons.

While he was in jail, Janssen required that Aceves be placed in the “Special Needs Unit” because his father told police that he had a history of mental illness.

Magistrates take a variety of factors into consideration when setting a person’s bail, including recommendations from prosecutors, the circumstances of the case, the suspect’s criminal history, the suspect’s ability to pay and the risk the suspect poses to the community. Aceves did not have a criminal history in Bexar County, court records show.

McManus did not single out Janssen in his comments — instead focusing on how many magistrate judges, he believes, set bail too low.

Janssen did not respond to a request for comment.

Christian Henricksen, chief of litigation for the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office, said prosecutors originally recommended setting Aceves’ bail at $65,000. They also recommended the slew of bond conditions, such as house arrest and GPS tracking, that the judge ended up requiring.

However, Henricksen said magistrate judges are limited in how high they can set a suspect’s bail. Under state law, a judge can’t set bail so high that the defendant can’t get out.

The purpose of bail is to ensure a person facing charges will return for their trial or hearing.

“The gut reaction when someone commits a violent offense in particular is that they shouldn’t get out in general,” Henricksen said. “The law doesn’t allow for that. Unless there’s a change in the law, people will bond out pretrial, as long as people are willing to pay.”

‘Disturbing’ remarks

According to an affidavit for his arrest, police were dispatched to the Amazon delivery station on the South Side on June 27 after another employee reported that Aceves had made “disturbing” remarks about committing a mass shooting.

During a fire drill three days earlier, Aceves told an employee it would “be a good idea to pull the fire alarm and have all the employees exit the building and to commit a mass shooting,” the affidavit said. Aceves allegedly followed the statement by saying he would commit such an atrocity.

When the employee told Aceves that she had to pick up her children from school, he allegedly said he would follow her so that he would know which school to shoot up, the affidavit said.

The employee didn’t immediately report Aceves because he had recently purchased a handgun and a rifle, and she feared retaliation, according to the affidavit.

Police interviewed Aceves’ father, who said that his son suffered from mental illness. He also said he was worried that Aceves had purchased weapons, the affidavit said.

While Aceves did not have a criminal history, McManus said his bail should have been higher. He said there are other cases where suspects do have criminal histories and yet their bail is low.

“People often ask what’s causing an increase in violent crime,” McManus said on social media. “One of the main reasons, I believe: No fearof consequences. We’ve got people that we’re arresting, and re-arresting, and re-arresting again. To say that SAPD is not doing their job — that’s simply not true.”

Cash vs risk-based bail

In Bexar County, judges have not relied on a bond schedule, or a set guidelines to determine a suspect’s bail, for several years — due in part to a federal ruling in 2018 regarding similar practices in Harris County.

As a result of that case, misdemeanor defendants awaiting trial in Harris County are no longer jailed simply because they can’t afford bail. A similar case regarding felony suspects is currently pending.

Henricksen said the federal ruling shows that you can’t have a “one-size fits-all approach for bail.”

“If you have two people charged with the same crime, if one guy’s poor and another guy is rich, the bond shouldn’t be the same,” Henricksen said. “If they have money, they are probably going to post bond. If they don’t, they probably are going to sit in jail. It doesn’t help public safety. It doesn’t create an equitable justice system.”

He said an indigent defendant could be held in jail on a misdemeanor criminal trespassing charge for many months — simply because he doesn’t have the $20 or $30 to post bail through a bail bondsman. But a capital murder defendant, held on a $1 million bail, might have the resources to pay.

Any reforms of the bail system would be up to the Texas Legislature because state law dictates many bond practices.

Under one potential reform, judges could hold a suspect before their trial if that person posed a significant risk to the community.

If judges had had that option in Aceves’ case, would prosecutors have sought to keep Aceves behind bars ahead of his trial?

“I don’t want to comment specifically on this case,” Henricksen said. “But if we have a good reason to believe that a person is going to shoot up a school or any sort of public place, then that person is dangerous. If the law was risked-base, instead of money-based, then the judge would have the ability to make that determination.”

He also balked at the idea — that McManus articulated — that suspects in Bexar County don’t fear consequences. He said the Bexar County jail’s population is the highest it’s been in five years.

“Our prosecutors are in court, all day every day, trying to make sure, particularly on violent crimes, that suspects are being held accountable,” he said. “They are burning the midnight oil.”

Staff Writer Taylor Pettaway contributed to this report.
eeaton@express-news.net

Dallas County judges are struggling with ethical behavior

By the Dallas Morning News Editorial
Rising complaints of judicial misconduct reflecting poorly on judiciary

We can’t help but be concerned lately about the troubling behavior by some of our local judges.

It turns out, we are not alone. The state agency tasked with disciplining jurists for poor behavior has seen an uptick this year in complaints coming out of Dallas County. That’s caught our attention, and we urge the voting public to sit up and take notice as well.

n just the last month we’ve noted the following:

Dallas attorney Marilynn Mayse in January will be sworn in as judge of County Criminal Court No. 1, a misdemeanor court, despite still owing $42,350 in delinquent fines to the Texas Ethics Commission for failing to file campaign finance reports.
County Criminal Court No. 3 Judge Audrey Moorehead was placed on one-year deferred-adjudication probation last month after being arrested in December 2020 for allegedly driving drunk and crashing her car into a light pole. Not only does Moorehead preside over DWI cases in her misdemeanor court, but also she oversees a specialty court dealing strictly with DWI cases. She was publicly admonished last month by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. Facing no Republican opponent in the November general election, she will be sworn in again in January.
State District Judge Amber Givens is under investigation by the Texas Rangers for alleged misconduct. Givens is under fire by members of the defense bar, who want the felony jurist recused from dozens of their cases. She also faces no Republican challenger and will be sworn in again in January.

The State Commission on Judicial Conduct tells us that so far this fiscal year, which ends Aug. 31, it has received 132 complaints against Dallas County judges. That’s concerning because that number already is five more than it received last year.

In addition to the sanction issued in June against Moorhead, the commission has issued two others against Dallas judges this year.

State District Judge Gena Slaughter of the 191st Civil District Court received a public warning in February for owing at one point up to $11,200 in delinquent campaign finance filing fees. She has since paid the fines.

County Criminal Court No. 10 Judge Etta Mullin in March was publicly reprimanded for poor conduct toward defendants and lawyers in her courtroom. Though she is still on the bench, Mullin lost in the May runoff.

We’re alarmed by all of these findings, which come amid accusations by some Dallas County Commissioners that many of our criminal judges aren’t working hard enough even as case backlogs grow.

The judges generally have denied that. But what can’t be denied is that there is growing evidence that something is amiss at the courthouse.

A centuries-old court in Delaware will decide if Elon Musk has to buy Twitter

The battle over Twitter‘s future is moving into a courtroom — not in California, where it is headquartered, but in Delaware, where the social media company was incorporated in 2007.

On Tuesday, Twitter sued billionaire Elon Musk in the Delaware Court of Chancery, a hub of high-profile corporate litigation that is more than two centuries old, descended from the the High Court of Chancery in Great Britain.

In a 62-page lawsuit, the company asked the court to order the world’s richest man to complete a $44 billion takeover deal he has been trying to back out of.

Musk is no stranger to the Delaware Court of Chancery. Last year, the Tesla CEO prevailed in a suit brought by the company’s shareholders. The court also has decided cases involving the likes of Facebook, Goldman Sachs, and McDonald’s.

What is the Delaware Court of Chancery?

Many public companies, including roughly two-thirds of the Fortune 500, are incorporated in Delaware, and while the state’s corporate-friendly tax system is a big reason why, so is its Court of Chancery, which has jurisdiction over corporate law.

Established in 1792, the court says it deals with “corporate matters, trusts, estates, and other fiduciary matters, disputes involving the purchase and sale of land, questions of title to real estate, and commercial and contractual matters in general.”

How is it different from other courts?

The Delaware Court of Chancery is more specialized than most courts in the U.S. While other courts consider cases in which one party is seeking monetary damages from another, the Court of Chancery does not.

Instead, it is a “court of equity.” What does that mean, exactly? David Margules, a Wilmington-based partner with the law firm Ballard Spahr, explains:

“You are asking the court to enter an order that requires someone to do something, or prohibits someone from doing something.”

Which is what Twitter is doing in this case.

In its lawsuit, it is asking the Delaware Court of Chancery to order the defendants — Musk and two corporations he established to facilitate his takeover deal — to close the deal.

Experts say companies may prefer courts of equity because they know the judges understand the ins and outs of corporate law. They become intimately familiar with case law, and they can handle cases in a sophisticated, efficient manner. In other courts, judges tend to be pulled in many different directions.

Who sits on the court?

There are seven judges: one chancellor and six vice chancellors. Picked by the governor, they tend to be longtime members of the DelawareState Bar Association who have spent their careers doing corporate litigation.

“The judges are generally experienced practitioners who cut their bones in private practice doing complex cases, and they work extraordinarily hard,” Margules says.

Notably, in the Delaware Court of Chancery, there are no jury trials. The judges hold enormous power.

How is this likely to play out?

Under Delaware law, Musk has 20 days to respond to the lawsuit, but to Twitter, time is of the essence. In a separate filing, it asked for an expedited timetable, saying any delay would harm the company and its shareholders.

Twitter wants Musk‘s lawyers to respond to the lawsuit by July 18, and the company proposed a four-day trial with a Sept. 19 start date.

“There is going to be a very tight timeframe, and the judge will be inclined to set a hearing on the merits very, very quickly,” says Margules.

In their initial agreement, Musk and Twitter agreed to the sale by Oct. 24.

The Delaware Court of Chancery has a reputation for being efficient. Judges often dispense with opening statements, preferring instead to go straight to the evidence.

At issue is Twitter‘s request that the court compel Musk to complete the agreed-upon deal. If a judge decides not to do that, it’s likely he or she would weigh in on whether Musk should pay a $1 billion breakup fee agreed upon in the deal.

Margules says the chancellor or vice chancellor overseeing the case will want to make sure there is ample time for an appeal to the Delaware Supreme Court, if necessary.

What if Elon Musk refuses to comply with a court order?

The Delaware Court of Chancery can hold someone in contempt of court, and it has the power to send someone to jail, experts say.

But Michael Hanrahan, a partner with the law firm Prickett, Jones & Elliott, who has been a member of the Delaware Bar for more than 40 years, suggests there is another way the court could hold Musk to account if he fails to comply with a decision that doesn’t go his way.

“Elon Musk owns a lot of stock in Delaware corporations, which may be subject to seizure in Delaware,” he says, noting Tesla and SpaceX are both incorporated in the state. “So, there may be means of compelling him.”

NPR’s Bobby Allyn contributed to this report.

TLR vs. TM

Introduction

In its November issue, TEXAS MONTHLY published an article by Mimi Swartz entitled “Hurt? Injured? Need a Lawyer? Too Bad!” The thesis of the article is that Texans for Lawsuit Reform has single-handedly manipulated Texas’s tort system to deprive injured Texans of their day in court. That thesis is neither accurate nor justified. TLR, its leadership and its 13,700 members, share a genuine concern and have real sympathy for those who have been injured by another person’s or company’s wrongful actions. TLR has no interest in a civil justice system that deprives these individuals of fair compensation for the wrongs done to them. TLR’s only goal, since its inception, has been to help Texas achieve a civil justice system that is efficient and fair to all litigants.

Ms. Swartz’s article, unfortunately, is clearly intended to support her thesis rather than to present an unbiased discussion about the Texas civil justice system. The article is misleading, inaccurate, and, in many respects, entirely incorrect in its statements of fact and law. The purpose of this memorandum is to summarize the most notable errors and omissions in the article, both legal and factual. Due to the pervasiveness of these inaccuracies and the obvious bias of the author, we formally request that TEXAS MONTHLY issue a complete correction of the erroneous and misleading statements.

Twitter Assembles Legal Team to Sue Musk Over Dropped Takeover

The company hired big-hitter Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz
Twitter aiming to file a lawsuit in Delaware early this week

Twitter Inc. has hired merger law heavyweight Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz as it races to sue Elon Musk for moving to dump his $44 billion takeover of the company, according to people familiar with the matter.

The social media company aims to file suit early this week, according to the people, who declined to be identified because the matter is private. By hiring Wachtell, it gains access to lawyers including Bill Savitt and Leo Strine, who served as Chancellor of the Delaware Chancery Court, where the case will be heard.

Musk has brought in Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP. The firm led his successful defense against a defamation claim in 2019 and is representing him as part of an ongoing shareholder lawsuit over his failed attempt to take Tesla Inc. private in 2018.

An official for Wachtell Lipton declined to comment, and officials for Quinn Emanuel couldn’t be reached. A Twitter spokesperson declined to comment. Musk and Jared Birchall, the head of his family office, did not respond to a request for comment.

Delaware is the corporate home to more than half of US public companies, including Twitter, and more than 60% of Fortune 500 firms. There, chancery judges — business law experts — hear cases without juries and can’t award punitive damages. Based on previous merger fights, efforts to terminate a deal can play out within a few months, often ending with settlements to avoid further wrangling.

Top Names

Savitt, a Wachtell partner, is at the top of select group of A-list chancery court litigators. Companies such as health-insurer Anthem Inc., real-estate giant Sotheby’s and financial titan KKR & Co. have lined up outside his door when deals turn sour or buyouts get challenged in Delaware.

Strine, who spent over 20 years working in the Delaware courts, most recently as Chief Justice of that state’s Supreme Court, helped shape the legal norms that Musk will seek to test by terminating his agreement to acquire Twitter. Strine joined Wachtell in 2020.

Before becoming the Chief Justice, he served on the Delaware Court of Chancery as Chancellor from 2011, and as a Vice Chancellor from 1998.

Delaware Chancery Court typically frowns on efforts to back out of merger agreements. It’s possible that one of Strine’s most influential decisions will determine how Musk makes his case for ditching his Twitter takeover.

In 2000, Tyson Foods Inc. agreed to acquire rival IPB Corp. Soon after agreeing to the deal, the meat market suffered a precipitous downturn, impacting both companies financially. Tyson argued it had been given misleading information about IBP’s business and was thus no longer obliged to complete the $3.2 billion merger.

In court, Strine disagreed that there had been a Material Adverse Change and ruled that Tyson must follow through with the deal. The ruling became a landmark and the Tyson-IBP case is still the basis for the way courts and corporations interpret the ability of a buyer to terminate a merger agreement.

The judges also have a say over whether breakup fees must be paid. In the Musk-Twitter deal, that fee is $1 billion.

In a regulatory filing after the official market closed Friday, Musk announced plans to walk away from his $54.20-a-share offer to buy Twitter, alleging that the company misrepresented user data. Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor responded by vowing to enforce the deal in what promises to be an arduous court brawl.

Twitter shares closed 5.1% lower at $36.81 in official trading, and dropped another 4.8% to about $35 in post-market activity.

Latest opioid ruling puts MDL judge further out of step on public nuisance

A federal judge soundly rejected the “public nuisance” theory behind most opioid litigation, further isolating the judge in charge of thousands of similar lawsuits who has consistently ruled in favor of plaintiffs on this very question.

In a decision released over the July 4 weekend, U.S. District Judge David A. Faber threw out the public-nuisance claims of Huntington and Cabell Counties in West Virginia, saying they had failed to prove that wholesale drug distributors had broken the law, let alone caused a crisis of illegal drug use and addiction.

The decision adds to judicial rulings that rejected the use of public nuisance law to assign liability for the sale and marketing of legal products, including by the Oklahoma Supreme Court and lower courts in California and Connecticut.

This latest decision, interpreting West Virginia law, directly contradicts rulings by U.S. District Judge Dan Aaron Polster, who oversees multidistrict opioid litigation and has sided with plaintiffs on the question of whether public nuisance law applies to the legal sale of drugs. Judge Polster initiated his oversight of the MDL by announcing he wanted to “do something” about the opioid crisis and he wasn’t interested in holding trials on the merits of the claims.

The West Virginia decision isn’t binding on Judge Polster, but it should influence judges elsewhere interpreting similar public nuisance law, said Donald Kochan, professor at the George Mason University Scalia Law School. Private lawyers working under contingency-fee contracts pursued the public nuisance theory in part because they knew they couldn’t prove liability using traditional theories such as defective products or fraud, Kochan said.

“The hope has always been they could dupe courts into believing public nuisance is an open-ended vessel for liability,” Kochan said. “But the court does not exist to resolve the ills of the world.”

The West Virginia decision comes after the U.S. Supreme Court decided in a somewhat related case that prosecutors must prove mens rea, or knowledge of wrong, when pursuing doctors on claims they wrongfully prescribed opioids. That decision, Ruan v. U.S., involved a higher standard of proof than in civil lawsuits but could influence opioid cases brought by state attorneys general that involve “quasi-criminal” penalties, Kochan said.

In his 184-page decision, Judge Faber said the plaintiff counties provided no evidence that distributors Amerisource Bergen, Cardinal Health or McKesson supplied a single illegal dose of opioids. They distributed the drugs to pharmacies that filled legal prescriptions, the judge ruled, snapping the chain of causation necessary to prove liability.

To rule otherwise would open “the floodgates of litigation” by allowing plaintiffs to sue over virtually any product, the judge wrote.

“To apply the law of public nuisance to the sale, marketing and distribution of products would invite litigation against any product with a known risk of harm, regardless of the benefits conferred on the public from proper use,” the judge wrote. “The economic harm and social costs associated with these new causes of action are difficult to measure but would obviously be extensive.”

The decision could help forestall litigation against other potentially risky products including cellphones (which can contribute to car accidents), fossil fuels, alcohol and guns. The judge specifically said the plaintiffs failed to prove the distributors acted unreasonably, a necessary element of any public nuisance claim. The plaintiffs tried to prove this by claiming the wholesalers released too many pills into the community, but the judge ruled they didn’t have any evidence to back it up.

“They offered no evidence, expert or otherwise, of how many prescription opioids should have been distributed,” the judge wrote. He dismissed the testimony of former Drug Enforcement Administration official-turned-plaintiff-witness Joseph Rannazzisi, who said 80% or more of the shipments were suspicious, criticizing his methodology as unreliable.

Despite judicial setbacks, opioid litigation has been a huge moneymaker for the politically connected private lawyers who recruited thousands of government entities to sign on as plaintiffs. Law firms including Motley Rice, Farrell & Fuller and Simmons Hanly Conroy stand to reap more than $2 billion in fees from settlements announced so far, including a $26 billion settlement by the Big Three drug distributors and Johnson & Johnson.

Many of those same law firms are pursuing government claims against oil companies over climate change. But facing judicial skepticism over the public nuisance theory, they appear to have shifted course to assert fraud, claiming consumers were duped into buying more fossil fuels than they otherwise would have purchased had they known about the danger of global warming.

“The fraud claims came with greater frequency as add-ons in climate and CO2 cases precisely when the public nuisance claims started to run into trouble,” Kochan said.

Police: Dallas man assaulted pregnant fiancée while out on bond in wife’s fatal shooting

Peter Nicholas faces charges of assault of a pregnant person and deadly conduct.

A man out on bond after being accused of fatally shooting his wife in 2019 is back behind bars after police say he assaulted his pregnant fiancée.

Peter Noble Nicholas III, 33, was booked into the Dallas County jail June 11 on charges of assault of a pregnant person and deadly conduct stemming from a pair of incidents this month. It’s unclear whether he has an attorney for those charges.

On June 9, Nicholas began arguing with and verbally abusing his fiancée, who was 32 weeks pregnant with his twins, police allege in an arrest-warrant affidavit.

When the woman went to shower, Nicholas followed her and ordered her to perform a sex act on him. He choked her from behind and said, “You ready to do your job, you [expletive]?” the affidavit says.

The woman told Nicholas to stop touching her inappropriately. He said he was joking, but the woman “knew that the suspect was never joking,” police wrote.

After the woman got in the shower, Nicholas again choked her, then punched her in the stomach when she told him to stop, according to the affidavit.

The woman told him she feared there would be complications with her pregnancy as a result, to which Nicholas replied, “Well, all you gotta do is do as I say and everything will be easier for you,” the affidavit says.

The woman’s 6-year-old son was home at the time but did not witness the incident, police wrote in the affidavit.

‘Extreme measures’

Two days later, the woman called police to the home again about an incident that occurred while she was driving on Interstate 35E with Nicholas in the passenger seat. He got angry and pushed her arms to try to control the car, forcing her to jerk the vehicle to avoid a crash, an affidavit for a charge of deadly conduct says.

Her son was not in the vehicle, police said.

After they got home, Nicholas took “numerous extreme measures” to try and control his fiancée and her son — including disabling the internet, hiding the woman’s keys, locking her out of her bedroom, changing the passcode on her phone and disabling her car, police wrote in the document.

Nicholas and his fiancée have lived together since December 2020, police said, and got engaged in late May.

The woman also told officers about a number of other incidents that occurred between May 20 to June 11. Police wrote in an affidavit that five additional potential family-violence offenses were identified and will be investigated further; the status of those investigations is unclear.

Fatal 2019 shooting

Nicholas was arrested July 29, 2019, after police were called about a disturbance at Hotel ZaZa in Uptown Dallas.

According to an arrest-warrant affidavit, someone called 911 and said they heard a woman screaming.

Security guards who went to the room after getting a noise complaint said they heard a gunshot. They then heard a man cursing and screaming “Oh my god,” followed by crashing sounds.

When police arrived, Nicholas opened the door. He was partially covered in blood and had an extension cord wrapped around his neck, police wrote in the affidavit.

He appeared to be under the influence of drugs and was taken to a hospital.

His wife, 32-year-old Jacqueline-Rose Nicholas, was found dead in the room with a gunshot wound. A handgun was also found inside the room, according to the affidavit.

Nicholas was indicted on a murder charge in November 2019 and released from jail on $250,000 bond days later. Court records show he was indicted again in March on an aggravated assault charge for the same incident.

In April, prosecutors and Nicholas’ attorney in that case filed a joint motion seeking a continuance. Prosecutors cited a witness’ availability in their request; Nicholas’ attorney asked the judge for more time to secure an expert witness, noting that Nicholas and his wife had both ingested hallucinogens before the shooting, and to adjust the defense strategy to reflect the new charge.

Nicholas, who is being held in the Dallas County jail without bail, is scheduled to face trial for the aggravated assault charge in August.

29-year-old man murdered after judge grants felony PR bond to armed robber recently paroled from prison

HOUSTON – “I’ve never had any of these defendants we’ve profiled on Breaking Bond on parole and on a felony PR bond charged with murder,” said Andy Kahan with Crime Stoppers. “This is a first.”

30-year–old Quinnton Allen is a convicted armed robber. He spent almost a decade in prison.

“He just got paroled December 3, 2021, and within two weeks, he gets charged with felon in possession of a weapon a gun, blatant violation,” Kahan said.

Allen not only got to stay on parole, but 185th Criminal District Court Judge Jason Luong granted him a PR bond for his new felony charge of felon in possession of a weapon.

“How do you get a personal recognizance bond, a get out of jail free card, for a convicted felon just released from prison?” said Kahan.

That decision may have cost 29–year–old Luis Espinoza his life. Police say Allen shot and killed Espinoza on June 18. He’s back behind bars with no bond set.

“Someone who is already convicted of a felony, and also has a weapon, they’re not supposed to have that to begin with,” said Sydney Zuicker with Crime Stoppers.

In a Breaking Bond report last month, we told you how Raymond Young and Delvin Clemons were out on bond for felon in possession of a weapon. Both went on to allegedly commit murder.

Because there are so many cases like this, Crime Stoppers is now researching the problem.

“My prediction is that felon in possession of a weapon is going to be present in a lot of our homicide cases, a lot of our family violence cases, and therefore it’s something that has to be addressed,” Zuicker said.

Mother of 9-year-old shooting victim said suspect threatened to kill her a week ago

According to court documents, Jones was out on five different bonds in Harris County when he allegedly shot Khylie Sorrells and her mom Brittany.

HOUSTON — The mother of a little girl shot and killed in the Heights Monday said the man charged with her murder came to their apartment with a gun last week, court documents say.

Brittany Sorrells said Jeremiah Jones, her ex-boyfriend, threatened to kill her. It’s not clear if she filed a police report when it happened, but police said she had filed complaints against him in the past.

Jones, 22, was arrested Tuesday night and charged with capital murder for the shooting death of 9-year-old Khylie Sorrells. He’s also charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon because the girl’s mom was also shot Monday night at their apartment complex on Oxford Street.

Jeremiah Jones’ criminal history

According to court documents, Jones was out on five different bonds in Harris County when he allegedly shot Khylie and her mom.

In fact, he was released on bond just two weeks before the murder after being charged with felon in possession of a firearm.

Victims’ advocate Andy Kahan, with Crime Stoppers, said Jones never should have been set free.

“They had this guy multiple times, they had umteenth chances to keep him in custody,” Kahan said. “Every time he was released on bond, he violated his bond conditions by being charged with yet another crime.”

Other recent cases included:

Evading in a motor vehicle
Terroristic threat against a family member
Burglary of a habitation

Jones’ rap sheet dates back to at least 2018 and includes theft, burglary and trespassing.

“While everyone is entitled to a bond, if you are on bond for a felony offense and you pick up a new felony offense, you are no longer entitled to a bond and that time the judge can no bond you,” KHOU 11 legal analyst Carmen Roe said.

That didn’t appear to happen in Jones’ case.

“In this particular case, it appears he had several opportunities where the state could have filed to no bond him and the judge could have held him in custody without a bond,” Roe said.

We don’t know if he committed any crimes before 2018 because he would have been a juvenile and those records aren’t available.

When Jones was arrested by HPD SWAT team members Tuesday night near Spring, police say he had a gun.

Domestic disturbance ends in tragedy

Court documents tell the story of what happened leading up to the shooting.

Sorrells said Jones returned to the apartment she shares with her three children and a cousin Monday night around 10 p.m.

The cousin was outside and tried to call and warn her, but by the time she answered the phone, Jones had already entered through the unlocked front door.

Sorrells said she was in bed watching a movie with her three daughters when Jones barged in. He ripped the television from the wall saying it belonged to him.

Sorrells said she broke up with Jones two months ago but he was in a jealous rage and accused her of seeing other men. After demanding her phone, he went back to the bedroom and shot Khylie in the head, according to Sorrells. She said he then shot her in the shoulder and left.

Khylie was rushed to the hospital but didn’t survive. Her mom was treated for a gunshot wound and released.

Sorrells’ 7-year-old and 1-year-old daughters weren’t physically harmed but they apparently saw their sister get shot.

‘Sweet child’

Her mom, Brittany Sorrells, said the Windsor Village Elementary School student was a good basketball player who loved to make TikTok videos. She was also in a program with the Houston Police Department.

“This senseless act of domestic violence hits home for me and the HPD family. That sweet child was a student and member of our Police Activities League (PAL) program,” Police Chief Troy Finner said. “Please pray for this angel, her mother and her family.”

A GoFundMe.com account has been set up to help pay for funeral and medical expenses.

If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence, here are some discreet ways to reach out for help.

The Houston Area Women’s Center has a 24-hour hotline for victims of domestic violence at 713-528-2121 or 1-800-256-0551.

The Family Time Crisis Center can also be reached 24 hours a day at 281-446-2615.

The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233).

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

Or text LOVEIS to 22522.

Judges lift trial COVID-19 restrictions in effort to reduce backlog

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Nueces County judges removed COVID-19 restrictions that have been in place since 2020, on Tuesday.

The Nueces County Board of Judges voted to lift restrictions it adopted that limit where juries can be chosen, and how many jury trials can be held in the courthouse at a time. The board kept an order that allows judges to hold hearings over Zoom.

Nueces County Jail currently is at 100 percent capacity and 281 inmates have been held for more than 100 days, awaiting trial. Of those 281 inmates, 88 are charged with murder, said 117th District Court Judge Sandra Watts.

The board of judges also received approval for a grant for $900,000, which will help cover the cost of a visiting judge and two prosecutors. The visiting judge will preside over an auxiliary court two weeks out of every month for the next two years. The court is expected to be functional Aug. 1.

Board of Judges Presiding Judge Carlos Valdez said they are looking to focus on prisoners who have been in jail for more than 100 days, initially.

In previous meetings, the board of judges has said it needs three more district-court judges, but hiring those three judges and the staff they need would bankrupt the county.

Watts placed the item on the agenda for consideration and told judges that she believed it was time to go back to normal.

“I think we’ll still encourage people to wear masks if they want to,” Watts said. “The problem with the docketing and the scheduling is: the seventh floor goes on Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays. So it’s very stilted. So, sometimes it didn’t flow to allow us to do as many cases as we could.”

Nueces County Judge Barbara Canales told district court judges that, while things do have to get back to normal, it was important to “not throw caution to the wind.”

Watts told judges she believes the courts can go back to doing more jury trials by removing the restrictions.

As the courts prepare to hold more jury trials, Nueces County First Assistant District Attorney Angelica Hernandez told the board her office is down several prosecutors, and may be losing another three in the next three weeks.

“I understand we are separate entities and the judges, you have to do what you think is right in regard to your dockets, but I just need you to understand — I know, Judge Stith, you only have one prosecutor,” Hernandez said. “We will endeavor to do our best, as we always do, and we understand you have to take everything on a case-by-case basis, but we literally may be 16 prosecutors down in the next three weeks.”

Hernandez told judges that the issue is a nationwide one, with some of the DA’s office prosecutors moving out-of-state to take jobs. Another issue, she said, is that defense firms can pay more.

319th District Court Judge David Stith said the issue isn’t just about hiring attorneys, but hiring prosecutors with experience.

“You have prosecutors going up into felony court that you’re expecting to try an agg(ravated) assault or, God forbid, a sexual assault of a child, or a murder, that are unfamiliar with the rules of evidence, that are unfamiliar with how you get in a piece of evidence,” Stith said. “That affects everybody. That’s going to be a ‘not guilty’ — that person’s going to go back out on the street.”

Hernandez agreed with Stith, saying it is a DA’s office problem.

“We have tried to not do a trial-by-fire with prosecutors,” Hernandez said. “We are at that point now. We will have brand new prosecutors — cover your ears defense attorneys — brand new prosecutors that are going to be trying agg assault, DWs, they’re going to be trying murder cases that have never even tried a misdemeanor. That is where we are.”

Canales said that the Nueces County Commissioner’s Court is working to address pay at the DA’s office. Last week the court voted to increase the pay of an open position.