DA STOUTLY BACKS GRAND JURY NO-BILL IN PEDRO OREGON NAVARRO SHOOTING

With the mayor calling for a federal investigation and the police chief
firing the officers involved, District Attorney John B. Holmes Jr. has
become the main target of many Hispanic leaders and activists angry over the
shooting death of Pedro Oregon Navarro.

They take issue with Holmes' longstanding policy of referring all
police-involved shootings to a grand jury without first charging the
officers, and his refusal to take the Oregon case to a new grand jury after
the first one cleared the six officers involved of serious charges.

In recent interviews, the district attorney vigorously denied allegations
that he soft-pedaled the case because it involved law enforcement. He noted
that these are not the only cases that go before a grand jury without
specific recommendations. For instance, parents accused of child abuse are
treated the same way.

Nonetheless, Antonio Balderas Jr., a member of the civil rights committee of
the Mexican-American Bar Association, said the policy on police shootings
amounts to preferential treatment for the officers.

If a citizen shoots a police officer, Balderas said, the person is arrested,
jailed and charged with murder. When the case goes before a grand jury, the
members are aware the person has been charged and that the district
attorney's office is seeking an indictment.

But when a police officer shoots a citizen, Balderas said, the officer is
not arrested and not charged with a crime. When that case is presented to a
grand jury, he said, grand jurors get a signal that the district attorney's
office does not want the officer indicted.

"The message the grand jury gets is that if the district attorney doesn't
think the evidence is sufficient, we shouldn't either," Balderas said. "My
experience has been that if the district attorney's office wants an
indictment, they get an indictment."

One example, he said, was the recent case in which a teen-ager shot and
killed a constable in north Harris County.

"He was indicted within (two weeks) for capital murder," Balderas said.

Members of his bar organization are calling for Holmes to take the Oregon
case to a new grand jury and seek murder or manslaughter charges against the
officers.

Holmes said the grand jury heard all the evidence, interviewed more than two
dozen witnesses and considered a wide variety of charges before clearing the
officers, and he sees no reason to launch another grand jury probe.

"I don't know of any evidence that was not available to these grand jurors,"
Holmes said. "And it is not the policy of this office to second-guess grand
juries."

Holmes said his policy stems from the fact that in every case involving a
police shooting there is some purported justification for the officers'
actions; if you believe it, there is not a case to be charged.

"And the decision as to whether you believe it or not is ultimately up to
the grand jury," he said.

The Oregon case and the incident where the constable was shot are hardly
similar, Holmes said. In the latter, he said, the constable chased the
teen-ager down and was in the process of handcuffing him when the suspect
pulled a pistol and shot the officer point-blank in the throat.

"Well of course he was charged," Holmes said. "There is no defensive issue
there for the grand jury to consider."

Members of the Justice for Pedro Oregon Coalition, a group composed mostly
of Hispanic activists, recently met with Holmes to try to convince him to
continue seeking charges against the police officers who shot and killed the
22-year-old Mexican national.

They came away disappointed.

Coalition member Aaron Ruby said it was obvious from the start of the
meeting that Holmes would not budge from his position.

"Mr. Holmes' office has always been very pro-police," Ruby said. "And
backing down on this issue just doesn't fit with his tough-guy image."

Oregon was shot and killed after members of the Houston Police Department's
gang task force stormed his Southwest Houston apartment in an unsuccessful
search for drugs. The officers did not have a search warrant and were acting
on a tip from an unregistered informant, a violation of Police Department
policy.

Police claim they opened fire after Oregon pointed a gun at them. Oregon's
body was struck 12 times, nine times in the back.

At least nine of the shots entered Oregon's body at a downward angle,
suggesting he was shot while face-down on the floor. Four bullets were
recovered from Oregon's body, and numerous bullet fragments were found under
the carpet beneath the body.

The six officers involved were cleared of murder and manslaughter charges
last month by a Harris County grand jury, but they all later were fired from
the Police Department.

Federal law-enforcement officials have announced they are investigating
whether Oregon's civil rights were violated.

Holmes said grand jurors are instructed from the very start of their service
that every case must stand on its own merits, and they should consider only
the evidence before them when deciding on whether to bring an indictment.

Holmes said his office would never tell a grand jury that because a
prosecutor believes there is sufficient evidence to charge a person, there
is no need to review any evidence.

"What a stupid position to take," Holmes said. "And it is just as stupid to
take the opposite position, that just because there is no charge, there is
nothing to it."

One of the primary factors in determining whether to charge a person prior
to presenting the case to the grand jury is whether the suspect may flee, he
said.

"And I have never seen an occasion where a cop has fled the jurisdiction
because he wasn't first under bond before the grand jury indicted him,"
Holmes said.

Cases involving police officers are not the only ones his office takes
directly to a grand jury, Holmes said. All cases in which homeowners have
shot someone also are presented without charges, as well as child abuse
cases and felonies involving worthless checks.

Holmes said he feels the heat on other cases where grand juries fail to
bring an indictment.

One such recent case involved Houston Rockets announcer Calvin Murphy Jr.,
who faced allegations of accepting money from the city of Houston for work
he did not perform. After hearing evidence in the case, a Harris County
grand jury cleared him of wrongdoing.

"There were a lot of people who felt he should have been indicted," Holmes
said. "And there were a lot of people who believed we should have taken that
case to a grand jury with charges."

But there are other times where grand juries surprise everybody and bring
indictments.

Some years ago, Holmes said, one of his former investigators was shot and
killed by his wife. Her position was that the shooting was an accident, and
there was some evidence to support her story, including a 911 tape on which
she was virtually hysterical calling for an ambulance.

Most everyone felt the grand jury would return a no-bill.

"They didn't, they indicted her for murder, and she was prosecuted for
murder and convicted and sent to the penitentiary," Holmes said. "I was
shocked that the grand jury indicted, quite frankly."

But just because grand juries act in ways that sometimes prove unpopular,
Holmes said, his office does not attempt to circumvent their decisions.

While Holmes concedes that he has the power under the law to take no-billed
cases to another grand jury, he has a policy against doing so.

The exception, Holmes said, is if the grand jury clearly did not follow the
law or if new evidence surfaces, and he has no reason to believe that either
apply in the Oregon case.

Not only did grand jurors hear all the evidence and interview the witnesses
involved, Holmes said, his prosecutors went ahead and typed up indictments
for murder and manslaughter against all the officers, as well as a host of
more minor offenses, so the grand jury would not have to wait for the
paperwork to be done.

"We had an obligation to instruct them on every possible offense that could
be committed, from murder all the way down to the class A's (misdemeanors)
of trespass and official oppression," he said.

Holmes said his office was prepared to prosecute anything the grand jury may
have returned.

"Obviously, we would not have drawn up the indictments if we did not believe
we could make a case," Holmes said.

After deliberations, the grand jury returned no-bills on all the felony
offenses, and voted to indict just one of the officers on a misdemeanor
charge of criminal trespass.

Prosecutors admit that took them by surprise. Although the grand jury was
instructed on the law as it related to criminal trespass, it was one of the
few charges they did not have prepared.

The indictment was typed up after the grand jury vote.

Holmes said he has no idea why the grand jury chose to indict one officer
and not the others. "The only way I would know that is if I asked them," he
said, "and I have not done that."

Holmes said he believes the grand jury properly applied the law to the facts
as they determined them, and believes it would be improper to take the case
to another grand jury.

Rick Dovalina, national president of the League of United Latin American
Citizens, said Holmes has shown that he applies his policies selectively to
suit his needs.

"How about Judge Lupe Salinas?" Dovalina asked. "Holmes took that case to a
grand jury again and again until he got an indictment."

Salinas, a Democratic state district judge, was indicted in 1994 on
misdemeanor charges of improperly spending campaign contributions. That
indictment came after evidence in the Salinas case was presented to four
grand juries.

The first grand jury indicted Salinas on some charges and no-billed others.
But those indictments were dropped after Salinas' attorneys found the grand
jury had been improperly appointed.

A second grand jury, convened to consider only whether Salinas had lied to
the first grand jury, declined to indict him for aggravated perjury. A third
panel failed to act before its term expired.

When prosecutors presented the charges to a fourth grand jury, they also
re-presented the original charges that had been no-billed.

Prosecutors in Holmes' office defend their actions, saying that since the
defense claimed the first grand jury's action were illegal in regard to the
true-billed charges, their action was illegal in regard to the no-billed
charges also.

Ruby, with the Justice for Pedro Oregon Coalition, said he is disappointed
the state judicial system failed to hold the police officers accountable for
the shooting, but believes there is little that can be done on a local level
without the cooperation of the district attorney's office.

While his organization considered asking the foremen of the five new Harris
County grand juries sworn in earlier this month to initiate an independent
investigation of the shooting, Ruby said the group ultimately decided
against it.

Without the district attorney's guidance, getting another grand jury to
investigate the shooting would be very difficult, Ruby said.

"Without Mr. Holmes' support, I don't believe another grand would return an
indictment," Ruby said. "I guess we will have to look to federal authorities
for justice."

Checked-by: Rolf Ernst