Travis County DA to blame in murder by released suspect: APA
AUSTIN, Texas - The Austin Police Association is blaming the Travis County District Attorney for failing to present evidence to a grand jury in time for a man to then be released from jail and kill someone.
"That's honestly a judge's worst nightmare, as well as a prosecutor and a defense lawyer," Criminal Defense Attorney Gene Anthes said.
On April 5 at around 6:45 p.m., Austin police responded to a call involving a homeless man with a golf club and hatchet fighting another homeless man with a knife in downtown Austin.
Court documents said a witness filmed most of the fight, which showed 56-year-old Hilario Adrian swinging a golf club at a man with a knife, hitting his knee and face. Adrian is then seen grabbing a hatchet and walking towards the man, threatening him.
RELATED: Man stabbed another following argument over meth sale on Congress Avenue: affidavit
Adrian was arrested for Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon and booked into the Travis County Jail on $40,000 bond.
"As you might imagine, the more serious the charge, the more serious the criminal history, the more serious the dollar bond amount is going to be," Anthes said.
After a suspect is arrested, the District Attorney’s Office has six months to return an indictment, or the charges can be dismissed. About four and a half months after the arrest, the judge reduced the bond to $1.
"Based on when the arrest was and the timing as to when the dollar bond was set up, my guess is they were coming up pretty close to that six-month timeline, and rather than just dismiss the charges and release him at that point, it made more sense to lower his bond amount so that he would then get out of jail," Anthes said.
He said he would then have to abide by bond conditions.
"He could still have to report to Travis County on a regular basis to have to report to court to be held accountable in some way," Anthes said.
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When FOX 7 asked Anthes why he thought an indictment hadn’t been returned in that time frame, he said: "There are so many witnesses, maybe, to be held accountable, and for the DA's office to find evidence for them to collect, aggravated assault charges can be relatively complicated, so it might take them some time to actually present all this information to a grand jury, and that could have been why there was a little bit of a delay in getting that indictment returned. It's not uncommon for an indictment to be returned several months after the fact when someone's been charged with a felony offense."
When Adrian was out on bond, he was arrested for stabbing a man to death.
"Who should never have been wandering the streets of Austin to begin with," the Austin Police Association's Michael Bullock said.
The stabbing happened on Dec. 10 at around 4 a.m. on Congress Avenue near Sixth Street. The arrest affidavit said Adrian admitted to murdering the victim after a disagreement over a payment for meth.
"Now that he’s killed someone, the district attorney has finally gotten around to the original charge of Aggravated Assault for Adrian, and he’s now been indicted," Bullock said.
Adrian is back in the Travis County Jail for First Degree Murder on a $1 million bond.
The District Attorney’s Office said it cannot comment on an active investigation. The murder victim hasn’t been identified yet.