Attorney Ernesto Gamez Flops, Fails and Falls Down in Second Hearing to Throw Out Hit-and-Run Case

Brownsville Attorney Ernesto Gamez (on the right)

Attorney Ernesto Gamez, once recommended for a $50,000 retainer by con-artist Carlos Quintanilla, to a local mother wanting to get her son off the hook for murder, now fights like the pedestrian lawyer he is, to get the hit-and-run case against Marisa Govea Hernandez thrown out.

Judge René De Coss

It's not like the old days when judges like Abel Limas could be slipped a couple grand for a little consideration.  Now, in Judge René De Coss's 445th District Court, Gamez must present actual legal arguments. So far, Gamez is batting 0-4 in attempts to have the case against Marisa Govea Hernandez in the 2/28/15 hit-and-run death of Mary Tipton, thrown out.

Marisa Govea Hernandez

At the August 30, 2016 hearing, Gamez started with a frontal attack, claiming Judge De Coss himself hadn't signed all the orders of the court. The judge quashed that with a simple "not true."

Next up, at the last hearing, was Gamez claim that the Brownsville Police Department's amateurish mishandling of a security camera tape, showing the entire 2/28/2015 accident, inexplicably reducing the original tape from 3 days to 30 seconds(way to go, BPD!) prevented Gamez from "confronting" BPD Detective Thomas Clipper about contradictory statements made concerning the case.  

BPD Detective Thomas Clipper

Gamez 3914 motion to throw out the case included the claim that the missing evidence would prevent him from showing that his defendant's 911 call resulted in a police officer scouring FM 803 "to the left and the right" with his "cop lights." That, according to Gamez, was part of the defendant's "attempt to render aid" that, now could not be demonstrated because of the BPD's inept, irresponsible control of evidence.

Attorney Gamez took another tact in today's hearing, but was no more successful.  He tried to argue that a proposed $10.3 million dollars in approved funding by the Texas Department of Transportation for upgrades to FM 803, the road on which Mary Tipton was struck, proved the road to be "unsafe" and that there had been "multiple fatalities" on the road.  When Judge René De Coss
asked Gamez if the court had that evidence, he turned to lead prosecutor Oscar Guzman, saying: "he knows about it."  De Coss was not buying.

Something I missed:  Attorney Gamez mumbled something I simply could not hear.  After the hearing, I was informed that he had implied that the husband, Ralph Tipton, could very well have been the one to have tossed his wife's body into the ditch along FM 803.  Judge De Coss was having not entertaining that.  By several accounts, Tipton was in Houston when his wife was murdered.

0-4, Gamez.

Meanwhile, my Facebook account received a message from a "Norma Guevarra," with a front and back copy of a protective order filed by Mary Tipton against her husband, Ralph Tipton, in 2013. The complaint, filed by Mary Tipton, in her handwriting, claims "15 years" of physical abuse, causing bodily injury by Ralph Tipton, death threats and verbal abuse. 

The communication from "Norma," began with:

"I dont want to take much of your time nor do i need or want you to post this but this is for you to read so you know the type of person you are supporting!"

But, a few minutes later, when "Norma" noticed I'd not posted the protective order on my blog, she took a different tone:

"Why do you only share his side with no evidence? Yet i provide you with all the evidence and facts and you dont post them?"

The obvious point is:  Ralph Tipton may have been an abusive husband, but that's irrelevant to the case.  His wife was struck by a driver, who, allegedly, did not stop and render aid.  Her body was found in a ditch three days later.  Whether or not Ralph Tipton was an abusive husband has nothing to do with that.

This case has not been one of the district attorney's office's finest.  Most of their evidence against Marisa Govea Hernandez, has been furnished in depositions by the husband of the victim, Ralph Tipton.  Those depositions, called "third party," by Judge De Coss, may subsequently be thrown out.

Luis V. Saenz' office seems to have not done an investigation of their own.  Rumors that the office has stumbled onto evidence of something in Marisa Govea Hernandez' background that gives her greater "capacity to engage in further criminal conduct" are unconfirmed.