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Austin lawyer files petition to release all Waco bikers
An Austin attorney is seeking the release of all bikers arrested after the Waco shooting.
Austin attorney Keith S. Hampton filed the petition with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
Hampton wants judges outside McLennan County to help with bond hearings for the bikers.
More than 170 bikers were arrested after the May 1 shooting that killed nine.
An Austin attorney on Thursday filed a petition asking the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to intervene in the release of more than 100 bikers who have remained incarcerated since the deadly May 17 shooting in Waco that killed nine.
Austin attorney Keith S. Hampton is asking the court to order the district judge who presides over the Waco region to start arranging bond hearings for the bikers in McLennan County Jail on $1 million bails.
To help with the large number of suspects, the bond hearings would be conducted by judges outside McLennan County.
“If the county gets deluged with arrests it has a duty to assign judges to handle the backlog and is supposed to do it without delay,” Hampton said.
If the petition is granted, retired Williamson County state District Judge Billy Ray Stubblefield, who still presides over the 3rd Administrative Judicial District, would have to oversee and appoint judges from the 26-county region that includes Travis and McLennan counties to conduct bail hearings.
The release of bikers has been moving slowly, but sped up in the past week as motions and lawsuits against McLennan County have rolled in from lawyers across the state seeking the quick release of their clients.
After the shooting that started at the parking lot of a Twin Peaks restaurant, Waco police filed blanket charges of engaging in organized crime — a first-degree felony — against more than 170 bikers. The $1 million bails have prevented most of them from being released. In total, 47 bikers have been released, according to the Waco Tribune-Herald.
Hampton hasn’t been hired by any of the bikers. He decided to file as a petitioner to jump-start bond hearings after seeing reports of the slow-moving process, he said.
Also Thursday, a visiting judge denied a request from Austin attorneys George Lobb and Adam Reposa to recuse McLennan County district judges from all cases related to the shootout, which authorities believe was a result of a biker gang turf war.
