Shop at home, stop pumping your tax dollars into other Counties.....
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I've known Mrs. Hooper for a very long time both professionally and socially, so I'm not just someone "on PCW". Even if I was, I'm still a voter and it should matter.
Let's give Jeff credit... he took on Deborah in court defending someone accused of robbing the Lion's Den store and defeated a sitting prosecutor who has been a lawyer almost as long as Jeff has been alive. That should carry some weight. No matter what somebody thinks of the current prosecutor, it shows that Jeff is able to try and win cases against somebody who has been a lawyer for a long, long time.
I had someone ask me a question yesterday about this.No, I am not making a public endorsement of Jeff Thomas, or for that matter, Kevin Hillman or Wayne Gifford or any other local candidate for any office. I don't get involved in supporting or opposing local candidates barring extreme cases. The Deborah Hooper situation is one of those cases where, as part of my work, I have seen things for the last four years that the general public needs to know about and which cannot be allowed to continue.Accused criminals have walked free in this county with smiles on their faces because of Deborah Hooper's errors. Want proof? Remember the arson case from a few years ago where the accused arsonist's defense attorney asked the state fire marshal why he didn't take pictures, the state fire marshal said he did, the surprised defense attorney asked where they were, and the state fire marshal pointed to Deborah Hooper and said he gave them to her? After something like that, there wasn't any choice; the jury had to be dismissed, the case had to be started all over again, and dozens of man-hours of firefighters and law enforcement personnel who had driven to Rolla to testify were all wasted for no reason whatsoever except that Deborah Hooper lost key evidence. Fortunately, the state fire marshal kept copies.Unfortunately, that is not an isolated case. I believe, given her track record of the last four years, that any of her three opponents would be an improvement.My public challenge to Mrs. Hooper stands. If she, as the sitting prosecutor, can find any law enforcement officer in Pulaski County willing to publicly endorse her and do a sit-down, on-the-record interview with me about why that officer supports her work as prosecutor for the last four years and deserves to be re-elected, I'll interview that officer in-depth and in detail on why that officer believes she is doing a good job.There are less than eight weeks until the primary election. The clock is ticking on that offer. I suspect I'll be waiting a long time.
It just feels to me like you have an agenda about Hooper, something I read you wrote somewhere.. Therefore it does make you look biased, and not the ideal person to hold the debate. Then again she doesn't come here and defend herself, so you know what I always say, "People don't come here who have something to hide." Not saying she does, but in my opinion it seems strange. I know I'd be in here defending myself if I were attacked. Then again I can just ban them LOL..
Your wrong again, you are making a public endorsement against Deb Hooper, its plain as those glasses on your face that you dont like her and are biased in anything you say that has to do with the Prosecuting Attorney race, its also clear that your with Hillman.
Darrel are you Dave from Radio Shacks long lost brother? If not I bet your besties.
Outside the box: I would like to see someone snatch up Wayne Gifford and send him off to Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and get his wardrobe fixed. I really like Wayne, but his "attire" is just wrong.
I would like to clarify... I'm not "holding" the debate. I simply took the initiative to make the arrangements happen. William O. Worsham, Attorney at Law will be the neutral moderator. He is not from this county and has years of experience in all aspects of the law including prosecution and will determine what questions will need to be asked. He will be determining the questions and who is asked what. He does not know any of the candidates, their history or their party affiliation. There will be 5-7 questions that will be provided to the candidates prior to the debate to prepare answers and then several questions that will be submitted from the constituents and the candidates, nor I, will know what those ones are.I really have nothing more to do with the actual debate other than making sure people are where they need to be and at what time.
B. Kevin Hillman is relatively new to this county, though he has lived here for a number of years. Lots of people outside the legal community don't know him, and while I have had the opportunity to observe his work, not being a "known commodity" is going to be an important problem for a lot of people. He's been a military prosecutor before, but so has Deborah Hooper, and we saw how well that worked out. There are major differences between military and civilian prosecution, the key one being the tremendous fire hose of work civilian prosecutors face, and Kevin needs to answer questions about how he will manage the prosecutor's office and their massive workload. Kevin is also in the Missouri National Guard, and while that's a big positive in my book, some view that as a negative. People need to be aware that he might get called up for active duty and we need to make sure there's a "Plan B" in place in case he's called up. He's been a lawyer in this area for a number of years, though much less than either Wayne Gifford or Deborah Hooper, and the fact that he's worked for Tyce Smith before becoming the St. Robert City Attorney and now also Waynesville Municipal Judge should be taken into account. (Wayne Gifford is also the Crocker prosecutor, BTW, so he also has municipal experience.) He has a track record, though it's thinner than that of Gifford or Hooper. Those who want to vote for Hillman will likely do so because they value experience but believe Gifford is unnecessarily abrasive and Hooper is demonstrably incapable of doing the job.C. Jeff Thomas is a young lawyer right out of law school, but the fact that he's the son of a local lawyer and grew up in this area can and should carry weight. He also graduated from a law school with a poor reputation, but he's explained to me that he attended that school because he could get through it in one year less than other law schools. That seems like a reasonble explanation to me. Being the son of Jim Thomas is a positive in some people's book and a negative in others, and it needs to be taken into account because unless his father retires, there will have to be many special prosecutors appointed to handle cases in which he or his father were involved as defense attorneys. (That's also an issue for the other two candidates, though it's less of a problem for them because unlike the others who won't have family members currently practicing law, Jeff Thomas' father will still be here in this county and still working.) The major negative against Jeff Thomas is his lack of experience, but the fact is that even with that lack of experience, he was still able to beat Deborah Hooper in a prominent court case. Those who vote for Jeff Thomas will be those who place less value on experience than on knowing the community and being known, and who believe Thomas has proved by beating Hooper in court that youthful energy can be more effective than years in legal practice. So what's the best answer? That's really up to the individual voters and how much value they put on different types of candidate qualifications. Two of the three candidates have been prosecutors before and have track records as good lawyers. With the third candidate, people are taking a risk with a young and relatively inexperienced lawyer, but he's already shown himself better than Hooper in the courtroom. And experience is not the sole factor voters should consider: Hooper is the most experienced of all the Republican candidates, but she's had long enough in office to prove she can't do the job. Some people may also say that having a young and aggressive prosecutor who knows the area well is better than having Gifford or Hillman because of specific things about Hillman or Gifford that they don't like.I've tried to frame the issues, but nowhere in this post have I told anyone how I will vote, other than that as a Republican I will vote in the Republican primary but will cross over to vote for Gifford if Hooper wins the Republican nomination. I sincerely believe a reasonable voter could make an informed decision to support Hillman, Thomas or Gifford, and any of those three will do a better job than the current prosecutor.
Mr. Hillman Sir.I have a question if you don't mind. Of all the Jobs that you are doing now, how many will you have to give up if You win your bid for the Pulaski county Prosecutor?
I've been gone from this site for quite a while, but I see nothing has changed. Darrell and maybe some others of you know who I am, so my comments should come as no suprise. I'm not sure why people are concerned about the relationship between law enforcement and the proscecuter. From some things I have seen, Pulaski County lacks a lot in law enforcement expertise. Maybe they don't like being told how to correctly do their jobs, or maybe if they did a better job, the proscecuter could do a better job. My experience with Ms. Hooper is extensive, and while she may not be the slickest lawyer in town, nobody tries harder. I think she is exactly what this county needs.
Thank you, BigEdd... I think your voice is an important one to hear.Since you noted my name, I probably ought say a few things.Deborah Hooper has some supporters in Pulaski County; for example, one man spoke up at the Laquey meeting when Hooper was repeatedly attacked and made clear the critics did not speak for him. Some of those supporters of Hooper are crime victims who either had their cases successfully prosecuted or for whom, in the victim's opinion, Hooper did everything she could to help.There's one area on which I will not criticize Hooper: It's not fair to call her lazy. She works long hours and tries hard. Sometimes she succeeds, and when she does, the victims on whose behalf Hoooper worked hard often appreciate her hard work.Of course, there are also other cases and other victims who have a different view of the matter.
People speak of this "track record" a lot. Does anyone have any official statistics? How many cases filed, how many tried, how many plea bargained, how many convicted, how many dismissed, etc.? What is her percentage of success compared to previous prosecutors? As far as training LE, if I were the chief of an agency that needed training, I would consider it my responsibility to get the training. I might go to the prosecutor for the training, or I might go elsewhere, like the State. Has anything like that occured? As far as organizational skills, I seem to recall similar comments made about the previous prosecutor. I'm not sure it is a matter of skill as much as funding to hire administrative personnel in the office. We all know the county has money problems.
These are valid questions. I've done some of the statistical work a couple of years ago and printed it on the front page of the Waynesville Daily Guide; more recently others have done similar digging.YankeeTrader, can you please help here by giving up-to-date info to Ed?The summary, however, is that Deborah Hooper's track record is horrible. Things are so bad that when people pay their traffic tickets AND SIGN THE FORM PLEADING GUILTY, at one point Circuit Clerk Rachelle Beasley was having to mail thousands of dollars of money back to the people who had tried to pay their traffic tickets because Hooper had failed to file the tickets within the statute of limitations. The county was at one point risking losing state-funded personnel in the circuit clerk's office because the caseload filed by Hooper had dropped so badly.Things are somewhat better now, in part because Hooper's actions were so obviously unacceptable that everybody, even her, agreed something had to be done to address the mess.I realize most of the money from traffic fines goes to other places, but the total number of cases filed **IS** key to showing the state that the number of personnel in the circuit clerk's office is justified. When the county is in dire financial straits, mailing back money from tickets because the prosecutor can't be bothered to file them before the statute of limitations runs out is beyond belief. That's not just a poor management decision, it is incompetence.