Nominations Chair: Bradley appointment as forensic chair looks doomed as Rs join opposition

Peggy Fikac at the Houston Chronicle quotes Texas Senate Nominations Chairman Bob Deuell on the waning prospects for Williamson County DA John Bradley's confirmation by the Senate as Forensic Science Commission Chairman.

"The Democrats are not going to vote for him, and there are two Republicans that are not," said Senate Nominations Committee Chairman Bob Deuell, R-Greenville. It takes a two-thirds vote of the Senate to confirm the governor's appointees. There are 19 Senate Republicans and 11 Democrats.

"He probably thought he could talk a couple of Democrats into voting for him. I don't think he can talk four" into it, Deuell said.

Bada Bing, Bada Boom. That should just about do it. Cue the exit music, maestro. Coming back from that deficit would require Lazarus-like qualities. Especially since, from what I've heard via the rumor mill, if push came to shove, more than two Republicans might end up voting against the FSC chairman. There are several R swing votes who'd probably appreciate not being forced to make a public decision. Now, it seems unlikely they'll be required to do so.

What I think did in the nomination was a) Bradley's bellicose performance at the Nominations Committee where he openly insulted Sen. Rodney Ellis, and b) his arrogance, duplicity and manipulation of fellow Republican appointees to the Forensic Science Commission. In his latest column, Rick Casey at the Houston Chronicle recounts an episode exemplifying the latter behavior:

In July, he presented the commission with an unsigned memorandum finding that it didn't have jurisdiction over the Willingham case and claimed it was "drafted, reviewed and edited through the combined efforts of the two members of the FSC who are lawyers, counsel for the Attorney General's Office."

When that was exposed as untrue, Bradley, who couldn't quite admit that he wrote the memo, joined in an 8-0 vote rejecting its conclusions.

Casey's right, that was a truly surreal moment. He also describes another example predating Bradley's ascendancy to the FSC chairmanship which was the subject of questioning from Sen. Ellis to me during testimony at last week's Senate Criminal Justice Committee: Destroying DNA evidence as part of plea agreements to preclude future testing.

Bradley's attitude toward the use of science was demonstrated back in 2002 when, on an Internet bulletin board for Texas prosecutors, he responded to a prosecutor who wanted a suspect to waive any further DNA testing as a condition of a plea bargain.

"A better approach might be to get a written agreement that all the evidence can be destroyed after the conviction and sentencing. Then, there is nothing left to retest."

The reason it should be destroyed is that if the defendant later shows evidence he is innocent, he might get his earlier agreement set aside.

"Innocence, though, has proven to trump most anything," Bradley wrote, as if this is a problem.

I asked him what interest the state has in destroying evidence, especially when scores of Texas convicts have been found innocent based on DNA testing after serving years in prison. 

He said we need finality and painted a picture of thousands of inmates filing endless appeals.

When you go look at the comment string on that topic now, the portions quoted by Casey have been excised from the bulletin board of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association (and for the record, the comment string in question happened in 2007, not 2002, which is the date JB signed onto the User Forum, not the date of the posts in question.). However, when at last Tuesday's hearing, Sen. Ellis asked me what I knew about the practice of securing destruction orders for DNA evidence, I testified that most of what I knew on the subject came from this TDCAA User Forum string and discussions that grew out of it in these two Grits posts. I told Ellis I'd kept a copy of the string in case it had been deleted before we were finished talking, and have uploaded it here (Bradley is commenter "JB") for posterity. :)

So, although his original posts have been deleted at TDCAA, Mr. Bradley can't deny supporting destruction of DNA evidence in order to forestall future innocence claims. Nor can he deny his aggressive, bullying behavior on the commission, nor his belligerence to lawmakers - too many witnesses and cameras were there for that. At this point, the case against him is clear and his own defense isn't credible. As a prosecutor, he would no doubt advise someone in his position to take a plea bargain and resign themselves to their fate. In this forum, he should instead just walk away and save the taxpayer the time and resources required for further deliberation. The Texas Senate has bigger fish to fry this session.

My hope is that either a) the Governor names one of the remaining commissioners as chair and selects a new prosecutor rep who's less opposed to the core mission of the agency, or b) the Legislature amends the FSC authorizing legislation to allow the commission members to pick their own chair. Mr. Bradley played a key role in diverting the commission's focus from scientific issues and shutting down its activities, attempting (for the most part successfully) to make the public debate about capital punishment instead of flawed arson science. This unexpected development presents an opportunity for the FSC to renew its focus and gain traction on investigative and public education projects that were all shut down from the moment John Bradley became their leader.

Like The Terminator, he'll be back. But at least there may be a happy ending (for everybody but JB) to this particular episode.