Beau Botches another Murder Case
Dec 1st, 2009 by Tennessee Walker
In what can only be described as an incredible display of incompetence, the Biden Justice Department quietly released Dominique Earl who had been imprisoned for 15 months for the murder of 46-year-old Kanubhai Patel. Earl was released on November 20th.
Biden’s Office was prepared to prosecute Earl based on the testimony of an alleged accomplice Kason Horta. Horta was allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge in return for testimony against Earl.
The main evidence against Earl was the possession of the cell phone that belonged to the murder victim Mr. Patel. Mr. Earl claimed that he bought the phone 2 days after the murder.
Forensic experts for the State did in fact confirm Earl’s account of the chain of possession of the cell phone.
In fact prosecutors knew in October that this was the case and yet proceeded to secure Kason Horta’s testimony against Earl by allowing Horta to plead to a lesser charge.
Earl’s attorney Natalie Woloshin was appalled by the actions of the prosecuotrs. Woloshin’s account is:
In early October, before Horta pleaded guilty, prosecutors told her that the cell phone records cleared Earl, Woloshin said. After Horta was allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge, Woloshin said, she wondered how he would be able to testify against somebody prosecutors had concluded was not involved.
Indeed one does wonder that. But with the fourth murder case falling apart since February, one wonders about more than just this one case. One wonders about the pattern of incompetence that this type of case demonstrates.
Kanubhai Patel now joins the list of other murder victims whose families will have to wait for justice. Those other victims are Marlon E. Johnson of Wilmington, Delaware State Freshman Shalita Middleton, and Rene Caraballo of Wilmington.
It is a shame when government falls down on its most important function. We need a plan to change this or else we need a professional prosecutor in the office.
“It is a shame when government falls down on its most important function. We need a plan to change this or else we need a professional prosecutor in the office.”
Well we had a professional prosecutor running for the office but Democrats are more committed to having dynasties as opposed to competence.
We now know that the AG’s office was yet another photo op on the way to the Senate for the nepotism Biden administration.
Many of us said in 2006 that law enforcement was too important to be left to a guy who had next to no experience in actually putting criminals in jail.
There are now four families who are paying the ultimate price of giving the Democrats their own Biden dynasty.
The facts around the plea bargain sound uncomfortable, but at least Beau’s office manned up and admitted it instead of railroading the guy.
I think you are missing the point that two most likely innocent men have been set free, and the very circumstances that set them free have pointed authorities to the probable real killer:
Hate Beau all you want, but this is a victory for justice.
Y’all are ignoring the fact that Beau Biden was in Iraq serving the country while his office was conducting this casework? Yes, the AG’s office erred in unthinkably incompetent ways but Walker’s header errs in naming this Beau’s error. Just wrong. Keep it up. It is your credibility to lose.
It is your credibility to lose.
That ship has sailed.
Where was your story about Mike Huckabee pardoning the cop-killer?
There is no story there. Mike Huckabee didn’t pardon a cop killer. He reduced the sentence of a juvenille offender who was unarmed and got 108 years for a strong arm robbery. The judge in the case regretted the sentence and asked that it be reduced. Huckabee reduced it to 45 years based upon the unanimous recommendation of the parole board. They later paroled him way early. Years later in another state, he committed this terrible crime.
So you are lost in the fog. He did not pardon the guy. The guy was not a cop killer. The failure was in the Washington state justice system which did not extradite the guy back to Arkansas for parole violations. The guy then committed a rape and he was let out on only 15K bond in spite of his prior record and the fact that he should have been held under parole violation. If you want to blame someone beside the criminal, you should be aimed at the people who had him in custody for his adult crimes and did not hold him or send him back.
If the proper procedures of parole supervison were followed, this would have never happened. How is it Mike Huckabee’s fault that other people did follow the law after he left office (prosecuting parole violations in AK) or people in another state refused to extradicte him or give him appropriate bail?
It is a tragic story, but it has nothing to do with Mike Huckabee unless you just want to use the bodies of the police officers as a political toyl.
As I said Nancy, he needs to change it. I am giving him the benefit of the doubt, but that will only last so long. By next month, he needs to make some changes or else it becomes his problem.
Blame Bush, it’s his fault. If we weren’t involved in two illegal wars, Mr.Biden wouldn’t have had to be deployed.
* end sarcasm
It just goes to show that plea bargains are inherently corrupt – because you are offering something of value in exchange for testimony. That is not how you get to the truth.
Great spin David……. how dare me critisize Huckabee
how long did they let this guy sit in jail after they knew he was innocent?
PS Nancy, you can delegate authority, but not responcibilty.
That is not true. A person is not responsible for what they had no control over. It would be unreasonable to say that he should be responsible for something that he had neither knowledge of nor control over. The person who ran that department shoulders the blame. Now that he is back and the evidence of failure in that department is so apparent, it is his responsibility to deal with it. The clock is ticking. It is his department. He may not be responsible for someone’s screw up. He is responsible to show us that he changed something to fix his department. If he does not, he would be just as inept as the people he would then be refusing to supervise.
TW is right to ask the question. Noman raises a valid point about the overuse of plea bargins for testimony. I do not know what is happening inside the Justice Department so I am keeping my powder dry. AG Biden is a good man, I would like to believe, but I am concerned. Let’s see.
“Great spin David……. how dare me critisize Huckabee”
Go ahead and criticize Huckabee. You might try and using facts instead of liberal talking points. David recounted the actual facts and it was not spin. The actual facts are available had you chosen to do a minimum amount of research.
You relied on liberal bias and spin and then David beat you over the head with facts. Sorry, you can’t handle the beat down David gave you.
“The facts around the plea bargain sound uncomfortable, but at least Beau’s office manned up and admitted it instead of railroading the guy.”
I really don’t consider a very quiet November 20 release as manning up. From the NJ article:
“But on Nov. 20, the state quietly dropped all charges against the alleged partner, Dominique A. Earl, whose capital murder trial was scheduled next month, Attorney General Beau Biden’s office said Monday.
Only after Earl contacted The News Journal to say he had been freed from prison did Biden’s office confirm the state had dropped its case against him. Earl, who spent more than 15 months in prison, charged that police and prosecutors had “assassinated my character” by falsely accusing him of murder. If convicted, Earl could have faced the death penalty.”
noman’s attempt to spin this as a great move by Biden’s office ignores the fact that Earl’s very competent defense attorney, Natalie Woloshin had all the facts neccessary to clear Earl in any subsequent trial. Maybe, the DOJ could have tried to “railroad” Earl but a more likely trial outcome would have been even more embarassing to Biden than the current situation.
As for Biden’s DOJ finally getting it right, they had the name of the person who sold the cell phone for 15 months but never followed up until November. I’m glad noman considers the incarceration of an innocent man for 15 months a “victory for justice”. I’d hate to see what a loss would be.
“Y’all are ignoring the fact that Beau Biden was in Iraq serving the country while his office was conducting this casework? Yes, the AG’s office erred in unthinkably incompetent ways but Walker’s header errs in naming this Beau’s error. Just wrong. Keep it up. It is your credibility to lose.”
Nancy, I totally stand by my headline. When running in 2006, Biden’s Reserve status was raised and the Bidens’s assured all that Beau would have the necessary agency contact and staffing to handle any extended duty and that Justice in Delaware would not suffer. We now have 4 murder cases where the ball was dropped by Biden’s DOJ.
Beau Biden is the head of this agency. He makes the job appointments, doles out assignments, reviews prosecutors progress, and ultimately decides when to cut deals.
I don’t blame him for his failures. He is inexperienced and this office was meant for just a stepping stone on his way to Washington. The voters chose Biden over one of the best and most experienced prosecutors the state has ever had.
Maybe, if Beau gets to be a U.S. Senator, Dominique Earl will feel better about the 15 months he spent in prison
Ok, now we know Beau is inept; maybe more so than his father, if that’s possible. So it would stand to reason that someday, he’ll be president. The Peter Principle.