Recent news headlines have reported the Hudspeth County judge's refusal to allow Willie Nelson to plea to a lesser charge on his pot bust in Sierra Blanca, Texas, the notorious border patrol stop on Interstate 10 about 100 miles east of El Paso.
County Judge Becky Dean Walker, who is not a lawyer (quite common in small counties) is entitled to reject a plea just like any other judge; however, she may not impose a sentence on her own. Rather, she must allow the Defendant to withdraw his plea and the case goes back on the docket.
Kit Bramblett, the County Attorney, told me that he recently took the case to the Justice of the Peace and filed it as a Class C misdemeanor, the lowest misdemeanor in Texas, for the same fine amount he had previously recommended to Judge Walker, who had rejected it. A County Judge can hear a class C at the court's discretion; in this case, Judge Walker rejected the plea offer, and Mr. Bramblett just walked it over to the J.P. and filed it in the lower court, which is set up to take care of traffic tickets, bad checks, and, in this case, the one of greatest entertainment personalities in the world.
Willie may pay the fine just like a traffic ticket. His presence in court is not required.
The lesson here is that a judge cannot tell a prosecutor what to charge or how to charge; all a judge can do is accept it or reject it. In this case, the County Attorney had the option of taking the case to a lower court, which is exactly what he did.
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