Judging the ClusterChuck
by David Benzion · 01/09/2008 1:30 pmThe Houston Chronicle is reporting that Harris Co. Judge Ed Emmett will be holding a press conference at 2 pm today to address the ongoing ClusterChuck* over bigoted and sexist emails in the Harris Co. DA’s office.
Yesterday, Emmett’s GOP primary challenger Charles Bacarisse issued this statement–which LST commends for its unambiguous moral clarity–calling on Rosenthal to resign immediately and be replaced by current First Assistant District Attorney Bert Graham.
Contacted for comment by LST last night, Judge Emmett issued the following statement, which we suspect will parallel his soon-to-be-made comments in the upcoming press conference:
“If the District Attorney has no reasonable explanation for what appear to be completely unacceptable e-mails, then I fear he has destroyed his moral authority to act. I will be seeking counsel from state and local officials regarding the best legal action to take. This is not the time to play politics, but my primary opponent has shown a lack of understanding once again. If the office of District Attorney becomes vacant, it is filled by the Governor, not by the assistant stepping in as Mr. Bacarisse has suggested.”
We suspect Bacarisse is right that Graham is a great guy and Emmett is correct on the actual legal process for replacing the DA.
Regardless, it’s good that both agree that UpChuck needs to go.
* NOTE: “ClusterChuck” is our phrase, not Emmett’s, although we are willing to endorse his campaign RIGHT NOW if he uses it this afternoon when speaking to the press.
UPDATED, 2:50 PM
Harris County government chief Ed Emmett today called for Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s staff to conduct an independent investigation of local District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal in the wake of the disclosure of e-mails on Rosenthal’s county government account containing racist jokes, campaign activity and sexually explicit videos.
Such an investigation apparently could turn Rosenthal, who is in charge of prosecuting Harris County crimes ranging from capital murder to bicycle theft, into a criminal suspect.
County Attorney Mike Stafford’s staff normally might conduct an independent investigation of the district attorney, Emmett said, but that agency already represents Rosenthal in the federal case that led to the disclosure of the e-mails.
Not clear yet if Emmett used the phrase ClusterChuck; inquiries have been made.
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How can a fairly intellegent DA pull such a dumb stunt? He must have been taking stupid pills.
Goodbye Upchuckie!
Rosenthal ain’t the brightest bunny in the herd. Between emails, racist jokes, using his county materials in his re-election campaign he is gonna get prosecuted methinks. Now when is the really good stuff gonna come out.
We haven’t seen the end of this yet.
Almost forgot
3rd
I still don’t know why people don’t get a gmail account. Its free. And you can send all the stupid backstreet-boy-dancing parrot emails you want.
What is known about Mr. Bacarisse? Do you think he would make a good county judge. I need my taxes to go down. My ears perk up when I hear someone say that the tax payers are being used to take care of HCHD. In 1974 I was a birth certificate clerk at the old Jefferson Davis Hospital and I know who was having the most babies.
Good grief, it’s just friggin email!
There are bigger fish to fry than stupid emails.
Navymom– with all do respect, it isn’t “just” friggin emails.
It’s racism, and sexism, and a position of public trust.
Harris County sends a lot of people to death row. I support that. I don’t want our efforts to send people to death row subverted, compromised or undermined by perceptions (let alone realities) that our prosecutors are racial bigots.
UpChuck’s “just friggin emails” are going to allow every single minority put on death row while he was DA to file an appeal of their case, citing racial bias.
At the very least, that’s going to cost us taxpayers a lot of money.
It is going to inflict enormous emotional hardship on the loved ones of people whose murderers are on death row.
God forbid someone truly guilty gets out because of this mess.
All so UpChuck can trade fried chicken and watermelon giggles with buds while at work.
Last time a checked, ripping off a woman’s clothes (both in public and in private) against her will was a crime, not a joke.
Yet UpChuck is chuckling about it on the taxpayer’s dime.
The world is full of over-the-hill, horny, racially insensitive white men who want to spend their days riding the keyboard and yucking it up online.
We don’t need our District Attorney to be one of them.
Did I hear Taxpayers - money?
Yep, there are bigger fish. And I bet the AG’s office turns up links to them too, like Monique McGilbra, Mike Surface, Jerry Eversole, Hermes Architects, The Keystone Group, and others.
The thing about those emails and Rosenthal’s willingness to destroy them though is that it gives every single person that was ever put away by the DA’s office under Rosenthal’s watch the excuse to claim that it was racially or sexually biased malicious prosecution and that exculpatory evidence was withheld or destroyed or damning evidence fabricated. This has the potential to be far bigger than the Bromwitch investigation and it is NOT going to be cheap. And a WHOLE bunch of nasty people may end up walking the streets because of this crap.
#6: uhm.. I think it is more than “just email”.. it’s most likely the content of said email..
or you could break it down to.. it’s just zeros and ones.. There are bigger things than zero and one..
or..back in the olden days.. it’s just paper.. doesn’t matter what the words on the paper say.. don’t prosecute the paper..
It wouldn’t be such a big deal if people didn’t make it one.
I was sent that same email with the watermelon and fried chicken. I have been sent racy pics. You can’t govern what people send you. I KNOW he didn’t have to forward them, so don’t start on that. I KNOW emails were a flyin’ on company time. HELL, I am blogging on this site ON COMPANY TIME. This guy isn’t any more guilty than the average joe of doing the same exact thing.
I wonder if Hispanic people and African American people have racist emails about white people? Funny cartoons of us dumb ass white folks? I bet they do.
I for one, am more pissed about the soccer stadium news released today.
UpChuck is a dolt and the uproar at LST is self-righteous horse hockey.
If you want to get Rosy, cut the bloody whining, get something hard, and nail him.
Nat
Jeopardizing the convictions of minority criminals over the last ten years, making fools out of his colleagues who are County employees and staining the integrity of the office by being so classless is not HARD enough for you ? Subjecting the taxpayers of Harris County with the cost of fighting endless appeals and motions and writs that will arise from this whole episode is not HARD enough for you ? Just how much public money does it take to be hard enough, Nat ?
#9 You got that right, they should add Carol Alvarado to your list.
Email is email, in my opinion. They are not meant for the public. If they are gonna pull this fellas’s emails, might as well go over everyone else in the government and see what you can find. Big brother at it’s best!
The DA was just stupid for being in the middle of this. How does that differ from most government officials?
You are right, this is going to cost us money in the long run. I still say shame on the people that are bringing this out into the open and harping on it. You can’t tell me the ones that are hollering the loudest have never sent out their own questionable emails. People in glass houses………..
There are much more important issues at hand.
Here’s an idea, why don’t all you smart, non-biased, non-sexist experts here run for office?! The ones that have NEVER told a bad joke, forwarded a bad email. I think you all would do our city government some good!
navymom, I’ll admit that I too have had my share of ribald emails pass through my in and outbox. I don’t particularly care about the campaign stuff, sure it is theft of taxpayers money but in the grand scheme of things, it is small potatoes, even if it alone is enough to get him disbarred and out of a job.
The emails would eventually have come out, he sent them to too many people and too many people knew about them. There have been rumors of it floating around for a while. That was how they knew to ask for them to begin with. That’s probably how they knew some had been deleted as well. Sure it was a setup on Lloyd Kelley’s part. But you can’t entrap an honest man either.
The fact of the matter is that he jeopardized every single conviction that has been made in Harris County for the last decade or more by destroying evidence, and by showing just how bigoted he was. We can throw stones because there is one fundamental difference: We are not responsible for putting criminals behind bars, he is. Heck, if I get caught with that stuff in my email, I just get fired. If he gets caught with that stuff, a bunch of murderers and rapists go free.
see the difference here?
#15 navymom
I tell and send bad jokes and tasteless e-mail all the time. Ask my friends. I do it on computers I paid for with online access accounts I pay for and on my own time. I also do not prosecute people and send them to prison for life or to be executed. I do not use publicly owned facilities, vehicles or communication devices to conduct my business or personal life.
I honestly do not understand why some people seem incapable of making those distinctions.
#16 Yeah, I get that. I am not a total idiot.
#15 Like I said before, the DA was stupid. Like most politicans.
#17 cont’d
You will also not find any questionable jokes or comments in my personal or business e-mails regarding race, gender or ethnicity in my computers. I don’t tell those kinds of jokes and I don’t receive them.
#20 Good for you!
texpat,
Making sure one does not send ‘nasty e-mails’ on the company computer does not assure one’s integrity; only a standard of efficiency, Chuckey obviously does not meet that standard.
My point is, from the beginning is: LST’s intensity and exclamatory reaction did not focus on the possibility of sentences being overturned, the presentation of fact to possibility ratio is low, I would expect this from lesser media.
“If you want to get Rosy, cut the bloody whining, get something hard, and nail him.”
Please, make no mistake, I do not like him; however, removing him from power using some PC criteria does not improve the quality of our representation.
# 20 texpat
C’mon now. You don’t tell Jew jokes ? Every Heeb I know tells them however comin from a Jew ?
How do these emails lead to inmates getting appeals citing racial bias? The DA just argues cases - the jury or judge determines the outcome.
Navymom,I want guys holding life and death decisions over the citizens held to a higher standard that the average person. A standard one helluva lot higher. I know I’m not worthy of that position. I don’t want others who aren’t holding it either. Nuff said.
Raider, if you’ve ever been the victim of a malicious prosecution by a DA who knows you are innocent, doesn’t give a damn, and only wants another notch in their belt, you would understand.
raiderdav
Rosenthal presents the case to the Grand Jury. Behind closed doors. Rosenthal makes the decision whether or not to even go to trial in many cases. Rosenthal has too many things to do with the trials and he also presents the case for the sentence he wants.
Rosenthal has the evidence and can withhold if he thinks he can get away with it.
And even if Rosenthal could skirt the issue every attorney in Harris County is going to jump at this chance.
Chuck should have known what was coming down the pipe.
And non lawyer here.
I don’t like the fact that one of the emails is tied to a relative of one of the people running for the office. It’s politics, pure and simple. Do ya’all think this coming out now is accidental? I’m with Navy Mom, go after him for all the law breaking. If I were a convict thinking I could get released because of stupid joke emails, I would have to be pretty sure, I never typed or told a ” politically incorrect ” tale. This is nuts. I’m not offended by what he sends privately.
And……. people in his position deal with the worst of society. It’s not an easy job. If he lets off steam…… and spouts filth, I don’t care…… as long as he is above board and does a good job.
AW… regardless of whether or not what he did was “wrong” in any other sense (I think it was), the fact that he did something that now allows murderers to appeal their convictions (and undermines public trust in the legal system) is in and of itself proof that he didn’t do “a good job”.
The only way to increase the quality and stop tunnel vision pursuit of justice is to find a better way to qualify quality.
The number of successful convictions or the number of arrests Cops, LEO’s, and Prosecutors achieve qualifies them; they all want more notches.
David, I understand your position. My worry is this snowballs and pretty soon, there is no one squeaky clean enough to run for office. Hard drives will be confiscated to see if anyone has had rubbish and deleted it. It just makes me nervous for the process.
There is a standard that I cannot seem to get across to people here. My father had a 37 year career building his business in Houston. He owned eight stores and sold them all in his late fifties. After about two years of boredom, he went to work for a state agency in a senior executive position. My father would not use the fax machines or copy machines there for any personal business at all, period. He kept personal calls to absolute bare minimum. Not a paper clip, not a single file folder taken. The idea his boss, the agency director, didn’t care was irrelevant to him. It was his contention he was a steward of the people’s business and it wasn’t appropriate for him to misuse the property of the citizens of the State of Texas. If there had been e-mail at the time, I promise you he would have been extremely strict about using a government account for government business only. He would have accessed a personal account for personal e-mails. Just how damned hard is this to understand ?
Your father’s actions are completely understandable and commendable; however, the opposite, using paper clips, looking at nasty e-mails, chipping the secretary, contemptible as it may be is not worthy of the ruckus made here at LST.
REMEMBER JOE HORN
#23 Dov
I am not a humorless prude by any stretch of the imagination. I do, however, draw a distinction between good-natured humor and mean, demeaning, derogatory jokes. Yes, I tell Jewish jokes to my Jewish friends and black jokes to my black friends. The test is they find my humor funny and enjoy the gentle deprecation in it. There is a difference in finding the contradictions and ironies in our cultural ambiguities and condescending, mean hostility masquerading as humor. If I tell a dirty joke men and women both would find it funny or I don’t tell it.
Oh yeah, we all enjoy gentle deprecation.
#36 Nat
I don’t know exactly how sarcastic your comment was intended. I don’t tell racial or ethnic jokes I think are intended to belittle or imply that some people are inferior because of their race or ethnic background. That is all there is to it. If you find that sort of thing funny, it’s your business as long as you don’t do it on government time or e-mail servers.
boobs
there I went and did it
AS in
Chuck and his cohorts are a bunch of boobs
Letsemptythejails.com
#34 Nat
We’ll see how out of perspective our outrage is when the bills start rolling in to Harris County and the motions start hitting the appellate courts. Until then, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
texpat,
I have not expressed myself clearly and apologize, he should be in office, he has done things unbecoming in office, however, the petty things he has currently been accused will not be his downfall, to allow him to be ousted because of petty, PC things is not creating a good foundation for future DA, and all city officials. It is worrisome when conservatives use PC tactics to defame someone.
Civil servants are also humans and should be allowed to behave as such; disallowing humanness behavior is apparatchik think.
The most distasteful part of this is LST’s presentation of a most serious problem; I have unsuccessfully conveyed that thought and most humbly apologize if I have offended you by my effort.
CORRECTION: …he should not be in office…
No worry Texpat. I’m just boinking with you (hamous already got that word LST approved)
Chuckie needs to resign. Tomorrow is another surprise
#22 Well said! My thoughts exactly.
American Woman - #28 & #29 posts are mirroring my thoughts!
Good thing the office where I work is not a government entity. Everyone here would be fired! HA HA