Friends – Despite the 15 Harris County Criminal Courts’ determined efforts to derail justice, The Honorable Lee Rosenthal’s Order will stand. The 15 Harris County Criminal Court judges can go to trial if they want, but for now they WILL grant PR BONDS. Poor people will get out, they will not burn down the city, and they will now have the chance for justice that the judges have for so long systematically denied them
We know the 15 judges will likely never acknowledge that the system they perpetuated was morally bankrupt. That doesn’t matter. The judges may continue to tell themselves that what they did was right. They may continue to engage in communal delusion if they so desire.
It doesn’t matter, because the truth is the truth. And the truth is, that for many years these 15 Judges and their predecessors perpetuated the systematic denial of Pr bonds without good cause. The truth is they knowingly perpetuated and participated in the Harris County Plea Mill. The truth is they accepted pleas of guilty from thousands of people knowing their “lawyer” had not had time to render anything approaching effective assistance of counsel. The truth is they entered findings of guilt against people knowing that they might be innocent and that they might be pleading guilty simply to obtain their liberty. The judges’ system, by definition, was morally bankrupt. The Judges acknowledgment of same is not necessary to make it true. It’s true and that’s why the Honorable Lee Rosenthal ruled as she did.
Robert Fickman, Houston