The 39 Days: A Habitual-Offender Bill, an Indictment, and a Dismissal

By Mrs. Eileen Hunter — about the author.

Three dates from the clerk’s minutes of Vaccara Comanche’s cases — records obtained by counsel only in March 2025. April 15, 2002: a habitual-offender bill is filed against Comanche, carrying potential life exposure. October 17, 2002: Tony Hunter is indicted — largely on the strength of Comanche’s claimed jailhouse eavesdropping. November 25, 2002: the habitual-offender bill is dismissed without prejudice — thirty-nine days after the indictment. (Clerk’s minutes, Nos. 2000-F-1473, -1474; the Comanche file.)

At Mr. Hunter’s 2004 trial, Comanche testified he had been promised nothing and received nothing. The jury never saw these minutes — they surfaced twenty-one years after the verdict. The pending writ application argues this sequence is exactly what Brady and Giglio require the State to disclose. (The writ, transcribed.)

The other half: no court has found the State suppressed these records; the district court denied the application presenting them without a hearing, and that ruling is now under review. (Procedural history.)