Camp Mystic hearing | Dallas News Live

Court hearing is happening today in reference to Camp Mystic. You may remember last year, 27 campers and counselors died during a flood in the Hill Country. The Texas Rangers have opened a criminal investigation. Joining me live is Jeremy Rosenthal, an attorney not associated with this case. Jeremy, what are you expecting to happen today in court? Probably some sort of a deal, either brokered by the judge, something that the lawyers and the Rangers sort of come up with. But hopefully some type of resolution and so to give everybody sort of an idea of what's going on. There were some criminal warrants that were issued investigating Camp Mystic and the tragic drownings that happened down there. The warrants on their face were really, really broad. They just wanted all the computer data from these people, which a search warrant really just can't go after everything. They have to sort of specify what it is that they want, and requests need to be a little more narrow. The families involved here from Eastland were a little concerned that these warrants were too broad, that they're getting sued right now, and that there could be privileged communications that are discovered. So their families have stepped in and are trying to sort of manage these warrants, if you will. Jeremy, in an affidavit, rangers believe that camp leaders possibly committed crimes. How hard is that to prove with it not being your typical crime that people may hear about of a shooting or a stabbing? This was a flood. So how hard is that to prove that camp counselors or camp officials committed crimes? It would be pretty difficult to prove that there was criminal activity and criminal activity can certainly be excessive neglect or something like that. The issue when it comes to a search warrant is that a police officer or the government have to show their math. They have to show how they connect the dots and they can't just say, well, we wanna look at everything because we think there's a crime here. That would violate the Fourth Amendment. So none of us would want the government just wholesale phishing through your medicine cabinet or your shopping history or your web browser. And these people are no different. We know that there was a terrible tragedy, and there may be some criminal activity here. But the government, like I said, they've got to show their math at this phase. If they want to go further and find more incriminating evidence, they've got to convince a judge that they have enough as it stands right now to look at those web histories, to look at things on the cloud and that type of data. Investigators are talking about possible manslaughter charges. I mean, some camp counselors actually died in this as well, not just campers. I mean, manslaughter, what burden would the state need to prove? Or, yeah, the state, talking about the Rangers, would need to prove in reference to bringing these types of charges? When you're looking at manslaughter or a criminally negligent homicide, you're looking at a really gross deviation from the norm. you're looking at excessive negligence think of it like this if this is a car accident case negligence is, is negligence, it's not checking your lanes, it's, it's not, you know, keeping a proper lookout, it could be speeding, criminal, you know, criminal, uh, criminally negligent homicide for instance would be driving 120 miles an hour without your hands on the steering wheel It would be potentially something worse than texting while driving, or if you had a tire that was out and you still drove in a car that way. That really gross degree of neglect is what you're looking at. So when we take it and we start looking at Camp Mystic, what we're really looking for here are those types of red flags that were ignored. Because if the incompetence, if you will, if any, or if the negligence was just so terrible and so tragic and so avoidable, it could rise to the level of criminally negligent homicide or manslaughter. Families definitely want someone held accountable in this, but it's a tricky situation, right, because it was a flood. And so is there a fine line with the defense arguing, you know, act of God and things like that when it comes to the state wanting to hold someone accountable? But then also, I mean, this was a flood. So kind of talk about both sides, how the defense tried to defend themselves in this. Right. The defense is going to say, look, this is an act of God. You know, this is this is flooding. This is what happens. And we have a 100-year flood or a 500-year flood every 500 years. It's going to happen, that we're going to have some excessively unforeseen things. And that's certainly going to obviously be your defense. On the other side, the issue is going to be foreseeability. Was a flood of this magnitude foreseeable? And if so, what safeguards and what actions were taken to sort of mitigate that or prevent that? Because, yes, an act of God is certainly by nature unforeseeable, but when you live in Tornado Alley, we're going to get tornadoes here. When you live in the hill country, you're going to get flooding like that. So to some degree, you really ought to be able to predict it is going to be, I think, the government's position here. And they're going to look towards, again, red flags, missed warning signs, failed inspections, things like that. Jeremy, is it likely that the only type of criminal charges would be against the owners or the organizers of Camp Mystic? Is there anyone else who could possibly face criminal action from this tragedy? To be criminally liable, you're gonna have to owe a duty to somebody unless you're acting intentionally, right? And nobody thinks there was any intentional act anywhere here. So when you look at it like that, when you look at a crime like this, a crime of neglect, you have to owe a duty to somebody. Meaning you have to be a camp counselor, you have to be or an owner or a facilitator or somebody who owes a duty to another person. That's why you wouldn't see a camper be prosecuted or probably even a camp counselor, even though I think you could make a very strong argument a camp counselor owes a duty to campers. The camp counselor is also gonna be 20, 21 years old and they're fighting for everybody's life, including their own, not just a camper. So that's why you would look at some of the higher powers or higher folks on the food chain there. Certainly people who own it, certainly people who are making a profit from it. Those are going to be the type of people who I think are going to owe a duty of care. We'll have to wait and see what happens from this. Jeremy Rosenthal, an attorney not associated with this case. Thank you for your perspective. Have a good day.