The judge found the DA’s prosecutors “were acting as investigators searching for probable cause, as opposed to acting as prosecutors with probable cause preparing for prosecution. As such, at this time, prosecutorial immunity does not protect the actions.”
A former Texas district judge who was wrongfully convicted of nine felonies and later acquitted—because the allegations against her broke no Texas law—has moved a step closer to holding prosecutors accountable for alleged malicious prosecution.
Judge Amos Mazzant of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas ruled yesterday that the prosecutors who investigate and prosecuted former 380th District Judge Suzanne Wooten of Collin County cannot claim that prosecutorial immunity protects them because they acted as detectives, rather than just prosecutors.
“This was not a case where the police investigated a crime to find a suspect, but rather where the prosecutors investigated a suspect to find a crime,” wrote Mazzant in the March 27 opinion in Wooten v. Roach, which denied all but one argument in the defendants’ motions to dismiss Wooten’s lawsuit.
The defendants are Collin County, its former District Attorney John Roach Sr. and former Assistant District Attorney Christopher Milner, former Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott—he’s now Texas governor—and former Assistant Attorney General Harry White. White and Abbott’s press office didn’t respond to a request for comment. Matthews, Shiels, Knott, Eden, Davis & Beanland partner Bob Davis of Dallas, who represents Collin County, Roach and Milner, declined to comment.
Wooten’s lawyer, Scott H. Palmer, said she feels elated by the ruling.
“She understands there’s probably more to come,” said Palmer, president of Scott H. Palmer PC in Addison. “These guys did this on their own: They targeted her and took this on lock, stock and barrel, and investigated their own case. That’s not what prosecutors do normally. It sends a message to prosecutors across the state and the land: Don’t engage in this type of behavior, because if you do and it blows up in your face, you are going to get sued.”
Wrongful Conviction
The opinion explained the background of the case. In March 2008, Wooten defeated incumbent 380th District Judge Charles Sandoval in the Republican primary in Collin County. Sandoval filed a complaint against Wooten, alleging she cheated during the election. The DA’s office, headed by Roach at the time, investigated Wooten’s campaign without law enforcement’s help. Later, the AG’s Office joined the prosecution. The two-year investigation ended with Wooten indicted in October 2010, and re-indicted in July 2011.
The prosecution’s theory was that a married couple, David and Stacy Cary, gave contributions to Wooten’s campaign through James Spencer, Wooten’s campaign consultant, who also did consultant work for the Carys. The central allegation was that the Carys funneled money through Spencer to Wooten’s campaign, in exchange for Wooten to file to run as a judge, campaign against Sandoval and issue favorable rulings in the Cary family law cases, Texas Lawyer reported.
The Carys and Spencer became co-defendants in Wooten’s case, and each was tried separately and convicted by juries. As for Wooten, she faced convictions for six counts of bribery, one count of engaging in organized criminal activity, one count of money laundering and one count of tampering with a government record, the opinion said.
Texas Lawyer previously reported that in the end, a jury convicted Wooten of the nine felonies in November 2011, and the state offered her 10 years of probation if she would resign and waive her right to appeal. She accepted but still pleaded not guilty and never waived her right to habeas corpus relief. She was sentenced to 10 years of probation and a $10,000 fine.
Mazzant wrote that Spencer took a plea deal. The Carys appealed their convictions, and eventually, those appeals wound up in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which in December 2016 acquitted the Carys of all counts, ruling the allegations against them weren’t a crime under Texas law.
Using that reasoning, Wooten filed for habeas corpus relief and won her acquittal in May 2017. She had been disbarred because of her conviction, but upon her acquittal, Wooten won back her law license.
Continue reading: https://www.law.com/texaslawyer/2019/03/28/wrongfully-convicted-ex-judge-wins-ruling-in-malicious-prosecution-lawsuit/
