The Gracia case is now on appeal before Harris County Civil Court #2.
Kathy Heaton posted on October 11, 2010: Voir Dire (questioning prospective jurors) will be held in the Ceremonial Courtroom on the 17th floor of the Harris County Civil Courthouse, 201 Caroline, Houston TX 77002. It is scheduled to begin on Wednesday, 10/20/2010 at 9:30 a.m. and is expected to conclude that day or on 10/21/2010; the trial starts immediately following jury selection.
Trial/hearing is presumptively to be held in Harris County Civil Court #2,
There are a couple of reasons I have held back posting on this case since the end of the JP "trial". For the County Court, this is largely a case of first impression on many issues even though the animal seizure law has been on the books for years. In this case, the Gracias are well represented by a team of lawyers with diverse experience and the case has been appealed to a court of record which appears to be giving the case serious treatment. I absolutely want the Gracias to get the fairest hearing of their case and that fair hearing with due process is largely what I blog about.
It is my personal belief that the Gracias will win, hands down, if this case is impartially heard and the law and rules are correctly applied. As I do want that done in the fairest way possible, I do not want my blog to interfere with the process. I can't imagine that my piddly blog could have such an effect but clearly the almost universally one sided major media reports on animal seizure cases do have an impact so I choose to err on the side of caution and refrain from blogging about this case - for now.
The case will be heard in an open court and I hope you attend if you are in the area and can do so. I'd like to hear from those of you who do attend. Feel free to post in the comments or email me at PJBoo9@yahoo.com. For health reasons, I may not be attending so I'll be depending on reports from you. When and as it is appropriate, I will post information.
As a blogger, I reserve the right to rant and rave, especially against injustices. In this case, I will merely defer my ranting a raving for a bit. So far, I have not seen anything done by the new judge that would warrant ranting and raving and I hope that remains true.
Perhaps I'll find the energy to blog a bit about the SPCA of Texas. I've seen in the news that they've been up to their usual and WORSE shenanigans of late. That's rather my point around here, fairness and all that. The process itself is critically important to us all, to protecting all our rights and property.