Huh?

irst things first. Last March, Lone Star Smear Project director Matt Angle told WorldNetDaily,

If you read the letters from [Johnny] Sutton's office or from DOJ, it's really amazing what abuse they describe and then downplay as not being serious. They describe systematic and widespread abuse of [felon inmate] juveniles who were held in these [Texas state juvenile correctional] facilities by the people who were administering these facilities, and they acknowledge this fully, yet they determine that the evidence is not sufficient to warrant federal prosecution.

I would dismiss this as the lunatic ravings of a wild-eyed moonbat with an axe to grind or score to settle with Things That Even Start With The Letter "R"™, except for the official statement by the U.S Attorney's office emphasized below.

In the Texas Youth Commission scandal, Texas Ranger official [investigator Brian] Burzynski received a July 28, 2005, letter from Bill Baumann, assistant U.S. attorney in Sutton's office, declining prosecution on the argument that under 18 U.S.C. Section 242, the government would have to demonstrate that the boys subjected to sexual abuse sustained "bodily injury." Baumann wrote that, "As you know, our interviews of the victims revealed that none sustained 'bodily injury.'"

Baumann's letter went so far as to suggest that the victims may have willingly participated in, or even enjoyed, the acts of pedophilia involved: "As you know, consent is frequently an issue in sexual assault cases. Although none of the victims admit that they consented to the sexual contact, none resisted or voiced any objection to the conduct. Several of the victims suggested that they were simply 'getting off' on the school administrator."

So if a 17-year-old student, when cornered by a sicko "educator's" advances attack, doesn't say anything or doesn't otherwise seem to "resist," it's Saturday night in Sioux City!* Pyote, Texas! for that student.

Sickening.

But surely Johnny Sutton immediately sent a follow-up letter or released a statement to clarify that his assistant misspoke and his office doesn't really believe that these boys were just asking for it by parading around in their cutoffs, right?

Wrong.

When this story finally broke he said,

We reluctantly concluded that the federal government did not have jurisdiction over any felony offenses allegedly committed. Because the most serious offense which might be brought by this office would at most be a misdemeanor, these allegations may be more effectively addressed by state authorities.

The same state authorities who'd already shown no interest in addressing the allegations any further — one of the reasons Ranger Burzynski was turning to the U.S. Attorney's office for justice — nor ever got around to showing such interest for at least 16 months.†

Meanwhile one of the alleged abusers became principal of Richard Milburn Academy in Midland. Would he have ever landed that job had he been defending himself against those "at most" misdemeanor federal charges? Instead he got, in effect, an all-clear from U.S. Department of "Justice" Civil Rights Division chief Albert N. Moskowitz who concluded there's no "prosecutable violation of the federal criminal [i.e., felony] civil rights statutes." Nothing specifically said about federal misdemeanors or state statutes.

But surely Johnny Sutton saw that no state authority was ever going to timely and effectively address the allegations, and thus would've wanted all the physical evidence and witness testimony collected and preserved by at least one prosecutor's office — even in a misdemeanor case — so some justice could be served, right?

Are you kidding? His office was too busy granting an illegal-alien drug smuggler immunity and "temporary parole" so Johnny Sutton could go after two of our Border Patrol agents who never would've been prosecuted but for said granting of immunity and parole. What are a few dozen inmate kids sexually abused by educators to him? After all, "our office's resources would be better employed investigating and prosecuting cases involving more clearly defined violations of federal criminal law," his assistant told Ranger Burzynski.

Now had those kids been illegal aliens, it've been Saturday night in San Antonio! for their alleged abusers.

The main onus here is on Ward County district attorney Randy Reynolds, a Demoslack, for not going ahead and initiating a state prosecution anyway. Clearly, Johnny Sutton had "better" things to do, so there was hardly any likelihood his federal district court would yank the case out of state court if it was already proceeding there.

Shame on the Lone Smear Project too for trying to paint these normal state-federal prosecutorial entanglements as some Grand Plot® masterminded by Karl Rove to... to — oh, say, send all liberals to Gitmo ...or something. They're really not much more than "your government at work." Bureaucratic confusion and apathy more than conspiracy or cover-up.

Johnny Sutton is not blameless, however. His office's seemingly off-handed dismissal of multiple, credibly-evidenced injustices allegedly perpetrated by "state school" officials against students directly in their custody, after its characterizing those allegations as somehow suggesting lawfully consensual acts, could not but help give responsible Texas authorities the impression that no crime at all, either federal or state, was committed or reasonably prosecutable.

In other words, if Johnny Sutton was going to pass the buck back to them, he shouldn't have wiped his asshat with it before doing so.

I can understand why Rich Glasgow said,

If this story is true, and I have no reason to doubt [WND staff writer] Jerome Corsi, who's done magnificent work in the past, then Gonzales is probably gone real soon and Sutton needs to be gone yesterday. You may or may not remember that Sutton [response: PDF] is the one responsible for the imprisonment of three border guards under dubious circumstances. [emphases in original]

If Demoliarats and other liberals weren't politicizing this sorry episode for their own sorry purposes, as they do with practically anything that has an R in it (Republican, Iraq, Katrina, World War IV, Terri,... you name it), I'd be inclined to agree that both heads probably should roll for it. The bungling at the federal level aggravated the injustices here. The many instances of it at the state level added to them. Both have taken and are still taking action to restore justice as much as they can, including the expedited release of all boys from a system Texas officials are now investigating and reforming.

As a result this story didn't get the pure gotcha-R traction Demunfairats were banking on. I'd just read about it for the first time myself while trying to find out more about Johnny Sutton's prosecution persecution of Border Patrol agents Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos.

The more I learn about his coddling of the criminal illegal (can't get any more lawbreaking than that!) "star witness" in the agents' case, and about that witness's stellar post-trial drug trafficking and border recrossing(s) being so uninvestigated by Johnny Sutton it makes his pursuit of the West Texas TYC alleged pedophiles look like Guliani's busting up of the New York mob, the more I believe it's the thing for which his and his boss's heads should roll "real soon."

* From Angel and the Badman (Republic Pictures, 1947), at 29:18:Johnny Worth (Stephen Grant)
What would've happened if they knew the gun was empty?Quirt Evans (John Wayne)
It've been Saturday night in Souix City!
† Atypical for that progressissy site, the reporting by freelance contributor Nate Blakeslee, Texas Monthly's senior editor, presents a background that is refreshingly heavy on details and identified sources and shies away from gratuitous conspiracy theorizing or — gasp! — name calling.

Labels: Aztlanic Sultanate of Suttonia

	7:44 AM

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