WACO, Texas — The prosecution of Seth Sutton, the Waco lawyer accused of being in a murder-for-hire case in 2020, will be pursued once again by the Texas Attorney General's Office, according to Clint Broden, Sutton's attorney.
The news comes two weeks after a mistrial was declared by a McLennan County judge after the jury reached an impasse, unable to come to a verdict following multiple days of testimonies and revealing of details beyond the initial accusations, including how an undercover Waco Police Department detective was involved in the case and the connection Sutton had with Marcus Daniel Beaudin, the man at the center of the murder-for-hire case.
Sutton was indicted alongside late Waco attorney Chelsea Tijerina. The two were accused of plotting to kill Tijerina's ex-husband, Beaudin, who was accused of sexually molesting a young relative of Sutton's.
The undercover police officer was also scrutinized during the hearings, with Sutton's side claiming that the undercover detective had coerced Sutton into what he had done, while the State claimed the officer did what he had to do in order to do the right thing, which involved putting his life on the line.
A release from Broden about the retrial can be found below:
"We have recently been informed that the Texas Attorney General's Office has decided to continue its ill-advised prosecution of Seth Sutton. This comes after a week long trial in which a rogue police officer, after taking an undercover course called "Lust for the Bust," admitted that he instigated each and every encounter with Mr. Sutton including calling Mr. Sutton multiple times a day. At that trial, almost half the jurors rejected the actions of the rogue officer.
Apparently, rather than undertake an investigation into this disgraced officer who repeatedly disobeyed orders from his superiors, the State has decided to double down in its pursuit of Mr. Sutton. We are, of course, disappointed in that decision and, given that new jurors are just as likely to be appalled by the rogue officer's actions as many of the prior jurors, retrying Mr. Sutton is an incredible waste of limited resources and taxpayer dollars."
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