I am using the insensitive term "dumb Mexicans" knowing full well it will outrage Latino activists who, along with their civil rights allies, will condemn me as a racist. Of course, I know that most Mexicans are not dumb, but the ones who served on a South Texas grand jury, those were dumb Mexicans.
A crazed prosecutor convinced that grand jury to indict Vice President Dick Cheney and former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on charges of abusing the inmates of a federal detention center that is operated by a private company. Had there been any smart Mexicans on that jury, instead of indicting Cheney and Gonzales, they would have laughed the prosecutor out of the room and called for the bailiffs to cart him off to the funny farm for an early retirement.
Here is The New York Times report on the indictments:
THE NEW YORK TIMES
A Prosecutor Indicts Foes, and Cheney and Gonzales
By JAMES C. MCKINLEY JR
Published: November 19, 2008
HOUSTON — The longtime district attorney in Willacy County, Tex., is not retiring from public office quietly after a defeat at the polls this year. Instead he has issued a flurry of indictments against his local political enemies, and then for good measure filed charges against Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales.
Mr. Cheney was charged with "engaging in an organized criminal activity" in connection with the 2001 beating death of an inmate by two fellow inmates at one of the privately run federal detention centers in the county, which is near the Mexican border, court officials said.
The indictment, brought by the district attorney, Juan Angel Guerra, asserts that Mr. Cheney has some culpability in what happened because he had invested in the GEO Corporation, a company in Florida that owns and operates the federal detention center in Raymondville where the death occurred.
For his part, Mr. Gonzales is accused of using his influence to stop an investigation into corruption during the building of another federal jail used by marshals. The indictment also says both Mr. Cheney and Mr. Gonzales "committed the crime of neglect" because, it contends, illegal immigrants were ill-treated at detention centers.
A lawyer for Mr. Cheney, Terrence O’Donnell, said the vice president had no direct investments in the GEO prison company but did have money invested in a mutual fund that might have invested in the company. He called the charge that Mr. Cheney had something to do with the assault or the running of the detention center "bizarre."
George J. Terwilliger III, a lawyer for Mr. Gonzales, said, "This is obviously a bogus charge on its face, as any good prosecutor can recognize."
Mr. Guerra was under indictment on charges of theft and tampering with records for more than a year and a half, until a judge (Manuel Banales, Presiding Judge of the Fifth Admiistrative Judicial Region of Texas) dismissed them last month. During that time, Mr. Guerra, a Democrat who has been in office 12 years, lost a re-election bid. He leaves office on Dec. 31.
He also has been acting rather oddly since his arrest in March 2007. At one point, he camped outside the county jail in a trailer with a horse, three goats and a rooster, daring the sheriff to arrest him. Convinced that local law enforcement officers had aided the investigation against him, he threatened to dismiss hundreds of criminal cases in retaliation.
Then on Monday, Mr. Guerra, 53, persuaded a grand jury to issue indictments against people he said had something to do with the investigation against him, charging them with wrongful arrest and abuse of office.
Those charged included two local district court judges, the Willacy County court clerk, a special prosecutor appointed to investigate him and a former assistant United States attorney.
In a separate case, Mr. Guerra brought an indictment against a political rival, State Senator Eddie Lucio Jr., a Brownsville Democrat, charging that he accepted money from a company that handles the day-to-day operations at the Raymondville detention center.
"It’s just retaliation," the county court clerk, Gilbert Lozano, said. "He’s not happy with some of the officials he had indicted."
On Wednesday evening, a judge set an arraignment date for Friday for Mr. Cheney and Mr. Gonzales, but said they could have their lawyers appear on their behalf. The judge, Manuel Banales, said he would not listen to motions to quash the indictments until that hearing, because Mr. Guerra was not in court.
Since no one knew where Mr. Guerra was, the judge sent Texas rangers to his house to check on his well-being.
Now that you've read The Times report, this is why I referred to the grand jorors as dumb Mexicans. Willacy County is located just north of the Mexican border city of Brownsville. The county's population is 85.69 percent Latino and almost all of its elected officials are Mexican-Americans. So, it stands to reason that the majority of grand jury members were Mexicans. If I am wrong, then I apologize for calling them "dumb Mexicans." But when the grand jurors indicted Cheney on the basis of an accusation that he had invested in the GEO Corporation, that was not only dumb, it was downright stupid!
For some time, Guerra has been misusing his office to seek vengeance against his political enemies. And now that he has been defeated for re-election, he has obtained the Cheney and Gonzales indictments as his last hurrah.
During a chaotic hearing yesterday, a tempermental Guerra complained about the judge's handling of the case and asked Banales to recuse himself. The Associated Press reported that Guerra pounded the table and accused Banales of giving the defendants special treatment in allowing motions to quash the indictments to be heard before the defendants were arraigned. "Now all of a sudden there is urgency," Guerra shouted. "Eighteen months you kept me indicted through the election."
The jury system is the cornerstone of our criminal justice system. While petit (trial) juries have generally received a clean bill of health, the O. J. Simpson jury being an exception, the same cannot be said for grand juries which have been widely criticized for being putty in the hands of prosecutors.
When a crazed local lame-duck prosecutor can obtain a prisoner abuse indictment of the American Vice-President from a group of dumb Mexicans because of an investment in a private prison company that may not even have been made, then it's high time that we reinvent the wheel and consider abolishing the grand jury system altogether.
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