That's the title of an article in Sunday's Greenville Herald-Banner. LINK
he attorney for capital murder defendant Brandon Woodruff is claiming Hunt County prosecutors engaged in misconduct by taping confidential telephone conversations between Woodruff and his defense team.
Jerry Spencer Davis is seeking to have the capital murder indictment filed against Woodruff — who is accused of murdering his parents almost two years ago — dismissed, or to have the office of District Attorney F. Duncan Thomas disqualified from prosecuting the case.
“The failure by the Hunt County District Attorney’s office to recuse itself, or be disqualified by the court, will undermine the circumstances of this case, violate the Defendant’s Federal Constitutional Right to Due Process of Law and Texas Constitutional Right to Due Course of Law,” Davis claimed in one of two motions filed earlier this month.
The motions, one seeking a dismissal of the indictment and the other seeking Thomas’ disqualification, were among those to be considered during a final pretrial hearing Tuesday, before the start of last Wednesday’s jury selection for Woodruff’s trial on the capital murder charge in the 354th District Court.
Instead, Judge Richard A. Beacom dismissed the pool of potential jurors which had been assembled and reset the trial for Oct. 31. Another pretrial hearing has been set for Monday.
And:
According to a letter to the court filed by Davis Aug. 31, Assistant District Attorney Noble Walker had denied any taping of the telephone calls made by Woodruff from the Hunt County Jail had taken place.
In the letter, however, Davis includes a signed affidavit from Sgt. Curtis Neel, the chief jailer, who said he had been instructed by a representative with the District Attorney’s Office to monitor and tape Woodruff’s calls starting in January of this year.
“Those calls consist of personal calls and calls to his attorney,” Neel stated in the affidavit.
Davis said Neel told him the sheriff’s office routinely monitors inmate calls for “security purposes”, but that they do not normally record the calls “unless directed to do so by the District Attorney’s office, the Texas Rangers, or some other law enforcement agency.”
Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty in the case.
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