A Meeting Today

Today's going to be a big day for Lykos and the Davidians, as Roger Bridgwater will actually face the Defense Bar and talk to them about the new Pre-Trial Diversion Program for DWI first offenders.

The show is taking place at noon on the 7th Floor of the CJC, and when I say "show", I mean it. Expect Roger to finally be getting some tough questions that needed to be asked before they decided to "accidentally" announce their program during a press conference. Oh, and this time, Rog, you can't complain to the Disciplinary Committee on anybody for questioning you for a dumb plan.

Some of the questions that I have that are immediately coming to mind are:

1. What are you going to do when a County Court judge doesn't want to follow your policy and won't allow the case to be reset for a year?

2. Who is going to decide what infractions are worthy of getting a Defendant's Pre-Trial diversion yanked?

3. Are there going to be any lesser sanctions for lesser violations? If the Judge of the Court can't be doing admonishments for some of your customers, who will?

4. Have you thought about the effect of indigency on your Pre-Trial Diversion customers? What if somebody can't afford the Interlock Device, or they don't have a car at all? Do they get their Diversion yanked?

5. What happened to your initial policy of saying that the Pre-Trial Diversion would only be used in "appropriate cases"? Since, the alternative, under your new policy is 30 days in the Harris County Jail, how can you claim with a straight face that the program isn't an "across the board" treatment for DWIs. Also, how are you going to argue that you aren't coercing pleas?

Those are just a few thoughts I have before I run to court. I'm sure Troy McKinney and Robert Fickman will have a couple of more for you, Rog.

By the way, the Over and Under is 10 minutes before Roger storms out of the meeting.