The El Paso Public Defender's Office is actively seeking sanctions against the District Attorney's Office after judicial findings of egregious misconduct, with one judge accusing the DA's office of acting in bad faith by improperly altering records, as reported by KFOX-TV. This stems from the fallout over the handling of several cases, including those involving migrants accused of rioting at the border earlier this year.
Kelli Childress, the El Paso Public Defender, highlighted the consistency of this problematic conduct, saying, "The only thing that is the same between those cases and our cases here, it’s the same prosecutor's office engaging in bad behavior," as per KFOX-TV. Simultaneously, in Culberson County, another presiding judge condemned the prosecution for its "routine and systematic" failure to provide timely, possibly exculpatory evidence to the defense, leading to the dismissal of substantial evidence and testimony that could weaken the DA's case.
The specific alterations made by the DA's Office were to Orders of Certification and Transfer in 59 migrant riot cases, which are now under appeal with the Eighth Court of Appeals, as KVIA reports. County Court at Law Judge Ruben Morales substantiated claims of the El Paso County Public Defender's Office that these documents were altered after the cases’ dismissals, leading to a call for their correction in official records.
This judicial tug-of-war reached a nadir when Judge Morales, issuing a scathing reproof, accused the state of refusing to participate in setting a matter for an evidentiary hearing or even responding to defense requests for one concluding "The State was not and is not acting in good faith to ensure an accurate record" and he ordered the altered record be removed from the appeal record, a move potentially crippling to the DA's case according to El Paso Matters. This incident casts a shadow over Texas' Operation Lone Star, aiming to deter illegal entry into the United States and prosecute violators under state law, yet now faced with allegations of legal impropriety within its enforcement.
