Dear Liberty Dispatch

A few days ago I was embarrassed for Liberty County again when the Liberty County District Attorney’s office responded “not ready” to a very serious aggravated assault of a child case. The pattern of foot dragging and misguided priorities by the very political DA, Mike Little should concern every citizen of this county.

Juxtapose, the new District Judge, Mark Morefield, is ready to go to work. He ignored all of his opponent’s nasty snipes at him during election time and he got right to work cleaning up the mess he was left after winning a slam dunk election in November. Despite, being booby trapped by former District Judge, Rusty Hight’s theft of most of the law books used by this office and despite having to work overtime making up for all of the days Judge Hight campaigned rather than held court, Morefield has reinforced the claims of those who were practically screaming voters needed a change in this office, by working hard and applying his expert legal mind to our local courts.

Now what the public needs is for the infamous persecution and selective prosecution of District Attorney Mike Little to be challenged by the new business-like “a speedy trial is the right of every defendant” approach to the courts. Little has developed a reputation that is so pervasive that anyone familiar with him is not surprised by his ill preparedness on even a case like the one mentioned above. While he is focusing the time and resources of Texas’ most bloated budget- in the courthouse on cases that satisfy his political goals. Liberty County Taxpayers are now paying visiting Judge Don Taylor to hear “not ready for trial”.

Little was not ready to bring the scandal involving former County Judge Phil Fitzgerald to trial either. He has not indicated he is ready to bring the Liz Beausoliel mail theft case to trial either. In fact he has taken a pass on nearly every corruption case that has come through Liberty County’s courthouse – except cases that serve his political objectives, ie – Scott Parker and Roy Bennett, Janet Harrelson and Ray Akins. All cases he had a cheering squad sitting in the political shadows.

Meanwhile, Little and his office with a budget that has not only weathered the recession, it has thrived – leaves defendants dangling in the wind running up huge legal bills in hopes he can wear them down and instead of go to court, cut a deal. Little’s game may have worked fine under Hight, but Morefield is ready to go to work. In the campaign Hight’s supporters repeatedly said Morefield was sick. They said his expertise was real estate. These statements were meant to convince people that we were stuck with Hight because Morefield couldn’t do the job. Instead, we now see Morefield is “sick” alright. He is sick of people playing politics with the courts. He is ready to go to work. Anyone attending court also has witnessed that Morefield is an expert in real estate law indeed, but he is also an expert and prepared for all areas of law that come before him.

Mike Little is currently dragging his feet with the results of handwriting analysis that he asked for on the Akins/Shauberger case. That example of Little’s modus operandi is no less representative of his abuse of office and deception just because of our affiliation with these two men. We taxpayers paid for handwriting experts to help resolve a case that Mike Little has spent huge amounts of time and resources on and what were the results. The samples were taken almost two years ago. Where are the results Mr. Little? Judge Hight allowed you all kinds of foot dragging excuse making, but Judge Morefield is ready to go to work.

Call a press conference tomorrow, Mr. Little. Explain to us why you were “not ready” on the child abuse case. Prove to us you are not hiding evidence that blows your case against Akins and Shauberger by showing the media the results of the handwriting analysis. Despite your media friends’ efforts take it look otherwise; you blew the Harrelson case and left us taxpayers with huge bills and one remaining yet to be overturned conviction. We know you have a slush fund that is “off the books”. We know you had a deal with the last County Judge and since 2006 your office has gotten more and more money, but please start getting more and more results. Many of us believe your deal with Judge
Fitzgerald should be undone, but if your office has money to burn, please show us the results.

We are ready for YOU to go to work forget the showboat stuff at election time. Start trying some cases yourself. Start taking care of the day to day business and hard work of the fighting crime, and ease up on all of the time you spend trying to get votes.