The Orange Leader
August 10, 1988
Cobb Denies Wade trial Delay
by Mike Wheeler
Staff Reporter
BEAUMONT - Suspended Orange County Sheriff James Wade will go on trial Monday as scheduled, U. S. District Judge Howell Cobb Ruled this morning.
Cobb's ruling shortly before 10 a.m. today came after an afternoon of testimony Tuesday by Wade's new attorneys, who argued that they did not have sufficient time to prepare one aspect of Wade's defense.
Cobb also turned down a request that Wade be released from jail to his lawyers' custody each day during the trial. Cobb said he would consider such requests for release on a day-to-day basis during the trial.
Wade's attorneys, Gary Richardson of Tulsa, Okla., and Jeff Kearney of fort Worth, filed the motion for continuance of the trial last Friday, claiming that government prosecutors only informed the defense attorneys last week of "voluminous financial records and documents' to be entered as evidence in Wade's trial.
Kearney testified Tuesday on behalf of the motion. Richardson was not present for the hearing.
Assistant U. S. attorneys Paul Naman and Stewart Platt Tuesday said Wade's former attorneys, John Hannah of Tyler and Roger Moss of Lufkin, were informed on May 18 that the prosecution intended to introduce Wade's financial records as evidence in the federal trial.
Naman introduced as evidence in the hearing several exhibits he said the prosecution had already given to Hannah and Moss that reflected some of the financial statements to be used as evidence.
Wade elected to change attorneys in late July and Richardson and Kearney took Wade's case on July 26, with an admonition to the new attorneys in the case, Cobb said Tuesday, that the trial would begin on schedule.
Kearney said Tuesday that he and Richardson learned, during an Aug 2 detention hearing on an appeal for Wade's release from jail, that the financial records were to be submitted as evidence in the trial.
Kearney said that the defense attorneys then requested copies of the financial records, but did not receive the copies until 11:25 a.m. Tuesday.
Kearney said that it would take at lease 30 days to prepare a complete analysis of Wade's financial history, according to advice from expert accountants.
In his ruling, Cobb said that he had admonished the new attorneys when they took the case that the date had been set, arrangements made and jurors summoned.
He also agreed that prosecutors had notified Wade's former attorneys of the financial evidence, which should have been indication to Richardson and Kearney that the material would be introduced in the trial.
However, Cobb did prohibit the introduction of any of the financial evidence until the second week of the trial - Aug. 22 - at the earliest.
"a change of attorneys in this case at such a late date does not automatically grant the court's decision to grant a continuance," Cobb said.
Lat this morning Cobb called all lawyers in the case into his chambers to discuss another motion filed by Wade's attorneys, to sever Wade's trial from that of Nyle Henry Baker, indicted along with Wade on May 2 on federal drug charges.
Richardson and Kearney also have requested that Cobb instruct the government's attorneys, to representatives and witnesses "not to make any direct or indirect references" to a number of statements and incidents occurring prior to the trial, including the refraining from making references to the allegations of homosexuality, the fact Wade has been in jail or that Wade violated the terms and conditions of his month-long release from jail on bond.
Back
