Unspoken Injustice; Denton County judge breaks the silence
By Stephen Webster
Investigative Reporter
Editor's Note: This is part three in a series.
Stephen Webster, TNC: “We’re talking about child molesters and what appears to be a pattern of leniency in handling their convictions. On [May 26] the Arizona Supreme Court rules that would-be child molesters, lured into homes by television reporters or activist groups cooperating with the police, cannot stand trial and will not face charges. The court claimed that the only way charges could be filed is if an actual police officer lured them in, as opposed to an expert in the field working directly with the police. And despite video evidence and transcriptions of their explicit conversations with these children, the cops’ hands are now bound in the state of Arizona. How do you feel about this, Judge McFarling?”
Bruce McFarling, 362nd District Court: “Well, I’m not aware of that ruling. But, here, if you make out an affidavit for probable cause to get an arrest warrant, you don’t have to be an arresting officer. I would think that if there is sufficient evidence for probable cause, whether it comes from an officer or a citizen, it should be good enough. The main thing is that you have to verify the credibility of the source. There has to be evidence, just like with drug search warrants. A lot of times they’ll have an informant go in and come back out to tell you what the circumstances were. But it has to be verified. … I would think the same thing would work here. If you can verify the information, you should be able to make an arrest.”
Christopher Largen, Building Block: “The child safety activist group Perverted Justice has gotten, I think, three convictions in the state of Texas.”
BM: “I haven’t heard of them before.”
CL: “They were profiled on MSNBC Dateline. They went in with their reporters and the police to conduct predator stings …”
BM: “Oh yes, I saw that. It was just incredible. But it is one thing, getting probable cause for a warrant, and another thing proving it to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt in a courtroom. If you can get them to show up with alcohol or condoms or whatever, it makes it a lot easier to prove the case. Especially if they have that video evidence, like what Dateline did. This, as opposed to arresting somebody based on their chat lines, it makes it a lot more difficult to prove intent because they could just say that they never intended to go through with it.”
“I will tell you though, there’s been more and more of these solicitation-type of stings. I don’t know how many times officers will call me up in the middle of the night asking for warrants to go after pedophiles. Especially officers in say, Lewisville and Flower Mound. When they need a warrant, they usually come to me or Judge [Jake] Collier. In fact, I just signed a warrant for Flower Mound where they snatched a computer. And I believe that if they get a certain number of child pornography images, the feds will take it. Though, I haven’t seen the return on that [Flower Mound] warrant, so I don’t know if they got anything. But I have certainly been seeing more and more of that lately.”
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