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Attorney seeks DA's disqualification
October 15, 2012, 9:00 pm by Frank Graham
The defense attorney for former Burnet County Republican strategist Johnnie B. Rogers, indicted for assaulting a Burnet Bulletin reporter, filed a motion to disqualify District Attorney Sam Oatman from the case.
Richard Davis filed the motion to disqualify Oatman in the 33rd Judicial District Court in Burnet over the weekend.
Rogers, a former state Republican Committeeman, is accused of repeatedly striking reporter James Walker in the presence of several witnesses. One of them was Burnet County Police Chief Paul Nelson, who said he ended the affray by pulling Rogers away from the reporter.
Last week, District Court Judge Guilford L. Jones removed himself from the case and a former presiding judge of the 379th Judicial District in San Antonio will now hear the matter.
In the motion to disqualify, Davis said Oatman had a conflict of interest. Davis wrote that by Oatman’s actions in the case he "revealed a bias and conflict of interest which impedes his legal duty that justice is done rather than serving primarily as an advocate.”
For more on this story, see Tuesday's Highlander or Wednesday's Burnet Bulletin.
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