As the old saying goes, the wheels of justice turn slowly. Likewise, so do the wheels of injustice, as a self-defense case out of Waco, Texas, recently proved.

This week, the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office dismissed murder charges against two Houston men involved in the self-defense incident at a party near the Baylor University campus, finally determining it was a justifiable homicide. While that was good news to Calvin Nichols Jr., it hardly makes up for the 635 days the man spent locked up in jail while the DA’s office slowly dragged its feet over the case.

According to police reports, on the night in question Nichols and his cousin, Jaytron Damon Scott, were invited to a party attended by a number of Baylor students, including football players. According to partygoers, Joseph Craig Thomas Jr. showed up uninvited and began threatening others with a gun, including a female student who asked him to move his car.

He later stuck a gun under the chin of a Baylor football player. And when Scott and Nichols were leaving the party, Thomas began to pistol whip Nichols.

That’s when Scott, acting in defense of his cousin, fired his pistol at Thomas, striking him multiple times and killing him. Murder charges were then filed against Scott and Nichols, a fact that Scott’s attorney, Bryan Cantrell, found unbelievable.

“I don’t know how this case got indicted,” Cantrell told KWTX.com. “This was the clearest self-defense case I have ever seen. And I think the problem is a lot of attorneys and, certainly the people of the community, don’t understand the law of self-defense.”

Cantrell added that since this was never a legitimate murder case, the public shouldn’t be worried about “murderers going free.”

“It scares the public that a murder case got dismissed,” Cantrell said. “This was never a murder case. This was always a justified homicide. In fact, we have the investigating officer at the scene saying six or seven times, ‘Yeah guys, this is a justified homicide here.’”

Abel Reyna, Nichols’ attorney, was also pleased with the outcome, although the time it took left nothing to cheer about.

“We are pleased that the recently obtained evidence supported what we had been arguing on our client’s behalf over the past two-plus years,” Reyna told KWXT.com. “While it’s sad that Calvin was in jail for that period of time awaiting trial, we are pleased the DA’s office made the right decision in light of this evidence.”

The decision to drop the charges vindicated Nichols and Scott, but the time it took the DA’s office to decide to drop those charges is a travesty and a shame. One can only hope prosecutors will be more diligent in the future in trying to see justice served swiftly for those who shouldn’t even be charged.

Texas attorney Emily Taylor, who specializes in defending self-defense and gun-related cases for Walker & Taylor PLLC in Houston as well as for Texas members of U.S. LawShield, says the case serves as a cautionary tale to citizens who are forced to defend themselves.

“Self-defenders need to be aware that self-defense, defense of others and defense of property are affirmative defenses (in Texas). This means the government is free to arrest you, prosecute you and force you to assert your defense to a jury of your peers,” Taylor says. “We all hope the state does the right thing and declines to arrest the self-defender, but that kind of common sense is, unfortunately, increasingly rare.” 

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40 COMMENTS

  1. Would it be in bad taste to inquire if Joseph Craig Thomas Jr. had a criminal history and one that involved violence?

  2. The bureaucracy of the justice system should scare the shit out of everybody. Even if you have faith in righteous outcomes there’s no telling how long it will take before you get that outcome.
    Your fate may very well one day come down to a sheet of paper on some pencil pushers desk that falls behind a file cabinet. Kafka’s Trial may be fiction but it’s accurate.

    • The bureaucracy of the justice system should scare the shit out of everybody.”

      Agree that it does, but that is functional in the sense of creating deterrence. Hence the tendency of people to tolerate it as the lesser of evils.

      • Would a $100M lawsuit help them to understand the cost of litigating a frivilous lawsuit (times 2)? Would the DA pull a weapon and defend his best friend, or just say “sorry”?

        • Not really. The insurance company would pay the settlement while the people who made decisions would keep their jobs. It wouldn’t cost them anything.

          • “the people who made decisions would keep their jobs.”

            So long as those acting remain within the boundaries of their authority, that will always be the case. The only way burrocrats can be “made to pay”, is when they act outside their authority.

            All the major cities in Texas are ruled buy Dims.

    • New Yorkers are still waiting for justice after the state’s malicious overreaction to Bruen in the form of the Concealed Carry Improvement Act. What is the current status of all the various legal objections to the patently unconstitutional CCIA? Still languishing in court, I see.

      • 2nd circuit pending over a year and a half. I figure it will be decided before I retire and move just a question of how long before.

        • Yeah, it’s shocking to me how long the process is taking. As beautiful as NY is (and it is), moving away was definitely the right call for me. I miss a few things, especially family still there, but not the blizzards, taxes, and gun laws. And not the inane plastic grocery bag ban either! I would consider returning only if the state government radically and fundamentally changed – don’t ever see that happening, no matter what the final outcome of CCIA and all the rest. Makes me angry to be driven from my home like that, even if it has been for the best.

          • Nothing but collapse will change NYC so taking your family and money out will always be the best choice wherever practicable. Especially when the new replacement population is not going to be productive in anyone’s lifetime.

  3. Violated his right to a speedy trial and potentially exceeded their authority or neglected their duty so personally liable for damages…qualified immunity is a conditional thing. Generally only bullies and naive do gooders go into law enforcement, same with the Courts. Now deal with the January 6th prisoners of the Democrat party and RINOs, three years in already.

    • Did he sign a waiver to the speedy trial or ask for one? There are a lot of questions about the situation about why he sat in jail without the attorney putting pressure on the DA.

    • Sure, qualified immunity is limited, but prosecutors and judges don’t get qualified immunity, theirs is absolute.

      And gee, it’s so hard to figure out why judges, many of whom are former prosecutors, would give themselves absolute immunity, while only giving police qualified immunity, when they invented the notion of immunity from whole cloth, instead of having legislatures work out how immunity ought to exist ….

    • Nobody is going to be in a hurry to force the DA’s hand when the result is they are going to trial on a murder charge.

      Resist a plea deal sure when you aren’t guilty, but going to trial in a murder charge carries a huge risk, that is probably worth avoiding even at substantial personal cost.

  4. Sounds like something cackles would do and did. Hopefully a lawsuit is in the works.

    TRUMP/VANCE 2024.

  5. I’ve had several defense incidents in my life. I’ve been hauled to the police station. I’ve also been asked to just come by later and give a statement and not been transported to the police station automatically. I’ve been questioned and held in a room but it was never more than a few hours (although on one I was held for about 6 hours). Never got charged with a crime and never formally arrested. I only got sued once (as in made it to a court room) over my defense (by the family of one of the bad guys I shot) and that was dismissed because in my state ya can’t sue the defending person if its been ‘adjudicated’ (determined by a judge or the DA) to have been valid legal self-defense. Through all of those, the one constant was the lawyer I got through a ‘self-defense insurance’ I initially had years ago then from USCCA for the rest.

    The legal jungle nightmare can be a lot worse when you don’t have a decent lawyer.

    So my experience did not involve being in jail for two years for valid legal self-defense and I am in no way trying to equate my experience with what this innocent person suffered for his incarceration.

    But I’m going to say something, and sure people have their own opinions… and that something is … when you need to pull that firearm out of the holster to use it to save your life or the life of another make sure you can also be prepared to pull that lawyer out too.

    • You aren’t of a colored complexion at a college party. I’m amazed you’re not going off topic🙄

      • No, not of a “colored complexion at a college party”.

        This guy should have never been charged. But there is one thing, where it says “…the recently obtained evidence…”, wondering exactly what that was.

        I mean, looking back at the history of the case and doing some research it was pretty much clear it was valid legal defense. So I’m wondering what that “recently obtained evidence” was.

    • You are some type of sociopathic retard if you have have had to shoot through multiple self defense situations.

      • I’m a ‘sociopathic retard’ because I was forced with no other choice to defend myself or my wife or another against those that were actually trying to kill us?

        You obviously live on another planet of your own mental illness delusional creation. I feel really sorry for your family members and you and others around you that you don’t value life enough to defend against people trying to kill you or those family members or others – you are the ‘sociopath’ AND ‘psychopath’ retard problem.

  7. Howard University?
    That explains why there are no photos of the people involved. Of course even Americans of African descent have a right to self defense.

    This is why one should if at all possible, just Shoot, Shovel and Shut Up.

    • maybe went to moderation, in that case it will usually appear later (but some times it doesn’t so not sure why that is)

      or…

      you got caught in that weird thing where it acts like you posted but it doesnt actually post and disappears never to be seen again. I’ve had that happen a few times over the last few days.

  10. There has always been an epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct. Prosecutors are elected and definitely will pander to the weakest and dumbest in any community while racking up convictions with no regard for guilt or innocence.

  11. …it hardly makes up for the 635 days the man spent locked up in jail while the DA’s office slowly dragged its feet over the case.

    Everything’s bigger in Texas. Including the DA’s clown shoes and the time s/he’ll cook you in a jail hoping you plead out to something.

  13. It is not bureaucracy that kept these people in jail, it was the prosecutors and they are scum.

  14. The courthouse of McLennan County, Texas is notoriously corrupt and incompetent. It has been going on for years and I know people who go well out of their way to avoid driving through there. Waco was the scene of the infamous Twin Peaks biker gang shootout in 2015. Nine people need up dead and eventually all 177 arrested had their charges dropped. The true story has never been told, particularly by the McLennan County authorities. The whole thing was outrageous and I don’t believe anything has fundamentally changed other than they ran the old DA off.

  15. “Self-defenders need to be aware that self-defense, defense of others and defense of property are affirmative defenses (in Texas). This means the government is free to arrest you, prosecute you and force you to assert your defense to a jury of your peers,”

    Am I understanding this correctly: if you kill someone, the State of Texas presume you are guilty of murder, unless you prove yourself innocent? Talk about a complete reversal (read: rejection) of a fundamental principle of justice! If this is true, why hasn’t this been struck down as a grotesque violation of the individual’s rights and a blatant institutionalization of injustice?!

    If I have misunderstood this, then could someone identify what this actually means?

    • No, you are absolutely correct. “Affirmative Defenses” are evil infringements masquerading as rights.

  16. LEOs and DAs should be required to have personal liability insurance. When they do something egregious it should come from their insurance and not the communities’. If they suck at their job, insurance companies won’t cover them, like a bad driver. They can learn to code.

  17. As I commented to a class of concealed carriers at their training, if you think that having this will shield you from the legal process, I have two words for you: Kyle Rittenhouse.

  18. Did I misunderstand the case? Two guys charged, but the actual self defense shooter wasn’t the guy held for two years?

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