In-Person Hearings Conclude
Zoom Hearings Will Continue & How to View Them
A long day at the Kinney County Courthouse, for attorneys, legal staffers, and security.
One thing we were unaware of last night— two different dockets for two different courts were active, both processing Operation Lone Star cases.
In the first instance, 34 detainees pled “nolo contendere,” a legal term of art that in most of the particulars is the same as a guilty plea. It means ‘no contest.’ The main difference between the two is that by pleading guilty, one admits their guilt. By pleading no contest, you admit no guilt, but will accept the court’s punishment. These cases were processed online, via Zoom.
District Court was scheduled to hear another series of detainees, in person, bussed back to Kinney County from Dilley. We are told the majority of today’s hearings in District Court involved accused smugglers, and that the majority also pled nolo contendere.
Some may be wondering why it is only *now* that in-person hearings are being held. We should have perhaps addressed this yesterday. Readers will have to forgive us for being over-familiar with the subject and not even thinking to raise certain, obvious, aspects.
In-person hearings were scheduled before Thanksgiving, but dispensed with, out of an abundance of caution, and the wish to avoid exposing County residents and workers to a high risk population for Covid-19. Many of the people caught along the border by Deputies and the Department of Public Safety have not been tested for Covid. Indeed, neither are those who are being caught by Border Patrol. It’s also worth pointing out that the vast majority of Border Patrol agents who’ve died in the line of duty this year have died from Covid, or Covid-related complications.
So, with that in mind, it seems highly certain that remote Zoom hearings will be continuing for the foreseeable future. We’ve been hesitant to publish where to watch them and how to access them. But it’s public information, and freely available on youtube. Just go to youtube-dot-com, and search for “kinney county courts.” Hearings happen about twice a week, and last most of the working day.
The search results will bring up a bunch of unrelated material— including news broadcasts from various organizations. You will have to look through them to find the “Kinney County Courts” channel, where the hearings are streamed live. Or, you can click the link above.
As expected, cameras were not allowed inside the courtroom, but we were able to snap a quick photo from the hallway, as the first group of detainees were brought upstairs and seated in the benches.
Not visible are all of the Kinney County Sheriff’s Deputies, officials from the Department of Corrections, and Galveston County, and DPS Troopers providing security. Not to make them sound jumpy, but one did like to see they were on point, and watchful when we happened to walk up behind them.
Given all of the security concerns for a small, sleepy little County Courthouse, and the risk of potentially exposing people to high-risk carriers of the virus, we asked if the in-person hearings will continue. We are told they will in some form or fashion, though there is talk of possibly scheduling them to be held in Dilley instead. We’re told that if it is approved, hearings could be held for as many as 100 detainees at a time, given the facilities present at the Dolph Briscoe Unit. There are some wrinkles to be worked out— it might require overnight accomodations for certain workers and attorneys, representing an unplanned for expense.
Meanwhile, just a few blocks away, folks were preparing for a different sort of major event. The County Junior Livestock Show and Fair is underway at the Civic Center.
We were there in time to catch the general livestock weigh-in. At that particular moment, most of the project stock being weighed were goats and sheep, but we’re told there’s an unusually high number of swine being registered as well.
The Awards ceremony is set for 1:00 O’Clock Saturday.
The Auction is set for 2:00 O’Clock Saturday.
If you’re unfamiliar, each animal represents months and months of work by youngsters, learning the basics of animal husbandry. How to be Farmers and Ranchers, at the most personal and elemental level.
They learn and appreciate what happens when the act of taking care of another living creature turns pro.
If you examine the word amateur, the Latin root of the word is that of the phrase “to love,” or “amat.” The amateur does what they do for the love of the act. By contrast, the professional does it for pay. We raise and care for our pets out of love. Goats, swine, and cattle are raised for pay, and though they can also be lovable too, their destination for the dinner table can make that complicated— something a professional must be able to live with to feed their families and communities. Obviously it is all more complicated than that, but this is the gist of the matter— part of what separates animal husbandry from keeping pets.
Whether caring for pets, or practicing animal husbandry, however— both acts require plenty of sacrifices, which the youngsters participating learn early on. There are lots of early mornings spent making sure there’s food and water and that predators haven’t gotten into the pens.
Sometimes it doesn’t even take a predator. Some sheep raisers will tell you that sheep are constantly killing themselves by accident. It would be comical, if it weren’t so sad, how sheep can somehow tangle their necks in the crooks of trees, or fall from heights for no good reason.
Goats, on the other hand are wily. And have a talent for figuring out what the last thing you want them to do, is, and then going and doing that thing. It is perhaps no coincidence that the goat is sometimes associated with the devil in folklore. Sorry goatraisers. But it’s true— they’re made of mischief, and goatraisers should know it better than anyone.
In any event, the livestock will be auctioned off at the end of the show— money raised is typically put in the participants’ college funds.
That’s all for now. Enjoy the weekend, and we’ll see you again soon. As always, any errors made in this newsletter are ours alone, and any opinions expressed here are likewise, and do not reflect Kinney County Government policies, as our employment with the County Sheriff’s Office continues. We’d also like to apologize for the high number of grammar errors, missing words, and style issues present in the previous edition. Embarrassing. As always, feel free to contact us for any corrections. We joke that our subscribers are our beta-test readers, but many a jest has been made in truth.
Please read the dispatch immediately following this one, for the clarification of a factual error. We leave it intact here, to preserve continuity with the newsletter that followed it. The error in question is one that would seem to cause no "harm" to any actual persons, making this the most attractive way of correcting, and sorting it out.