As trial nears, deadlines loom and a question of whether adopted son has joined the mix surfaces
This story was updated from the print version on July 3 at 1 p.m. to reflect a new motion to reset the trial date.
PRESIDIO COUNTY — The Big Bend Sentinel became the focus of a hearing last Thursday on whether the judge in the White family Brite Ranch legal battle should allow a change of venue because of extensive media coverage of the lawsuit.
The original lawsuit focused on whether Jim White breached his financial duties as trustee by not adequately providing distributions to his siblings Beau (now deceased), Mac and Hester Ann — all heirs to the Jane White Trust that owns the ranch. In a summer of 2023 trial verdict, jurors agreed with that assessment and Jim was stripped from his duties as the trustee that ran the ranch and managed its finances. However, an 8th Court of Appeals ruling out of El Paso nullified that verdict, and a new trial has been set for August 18 at the Marfa Courthouse in Presidio County. At stake is whether legal decisions will lead to the sale of parts or the entirety of the 65,000-acre Brite Ranch located in southwest Presidio County — something Jim and son, Cuatro, and other of his children have resisted..
Cuatro led the charge to move the trial, possibly to Brewster County or any county adjoining the 394th Judicial District, based on the assertion that numerous Sentinel articles and the family’s wide network of local friends and associates would make it impossible to find an impartial jury.
To bolster that claim, the petition for a change of venue included affidavits from Presidio County Judge Joe Portillo, Constable Esteban “Steve” Marquez and Marfa City Council Member Mark Morrison — all agreeing with the difficulties of finding an impartial jury. A subsequent filing included excerpts of depositions from the three.
“By reporting on a party’s legal victories, that influences readers to have an opinion about the White family or the Brite Ranch in this litigation; it appears that they have formed opinions due to just reading what the filings have ended up being found by the Court and ruled on,” Council Member Morrison said in the deposition. “If the average Presidio County resident reads a Sentinel article, they are going to be influenced by that coverage; a Presidio County resident cannot read objective, factual reporting about this litigation without being unduly influenced; it is unlikely that there are many residents of Presidio County that do not know at least one White family member … I think it would be dubious if you could actually get a fully impartial jury, and some people have already formed opinions of it through reading the paper ended up being found by the Court and ruled on.”
Portillo stated in his deposition that “this litigation is a topic of discussion; then everybody has an opinion … I think it would be very difficult, very difficult to impanel a jury that could be fair.”
“I agree that it is unlikely that an impartial trial can be held in Presidio County that is fair to all parties,” stated Marquez in his deposition. “The case should be moved to another place where it could get a fair judgment; it would be better to have another jury from another area that doesn’t know the family as well.”
One of Mac’s attorneys, Robert L. Soza, Jr., of Jackson Walker LLC, told the court that the Sentinel coverage didn’t matter for impaneling a jury, because he found no one stating “prejudice,” meaning an overall assessment that the coverage favored one side or another. Donovan Campbell, Cuatro’s attorney from Rader & Campbell PC, said prejudice was not required in the rules of civil procedure and the venue could be changed solely on a judgement that there would be no way to have an impartial trial.
Campbell also wanted to strike from evidence a report of the jury panel records from the 2023 trial. Soza said those records — which he displayed at the hearing, including all the jurors considered for a final jury — showed about two dozen potential jurors who stated they could be impartial, in addition to the final 12 chosen.
Soza’s argument was that even in a small community, there are plenty of people who would consider themselves unbiased. Campbell said that assessment was irrelevant, because The Sentinel had not written about the trial at that time, with 13 articles written since then.
Visiting District Judge Tryon Lewis denied the motion to strike the evidence and ultimately sided with Mac to deny the change of venue.
Will the adopted son step in?
Beau White died on Monday, June 23, three days before the hearing. The day of his death, attorneys filed an application with a Bastrop, Texas, court to make Geoffrey Scott Connor temporary administrator of his estate, which the judge approved. Connor is the Bastrop attorney adopted by both Mac and Beau three years ago at the age of 59. Cuatro and his siblings have called for the court to recognize his adoption as invalid for purposes of the lawsuit, a “sham adoption” meant to decrease their inheritance, since Mac and Beau had no children. An attorney for the two had previously threatened in an email that if they didn’t get a settlement in the case agreeable to them, that the siblings would adopt a child.
Since Connor is an adopted son, and an attorney who knew Beau and his late wife Kathleen well, it seems clear why he would handle Beau’s financial affairs after his death. However, the application for interim administrator also included: “There is an immediate necessity to appoint a temporary administrator for the Decedent’s Estate due to pending lawsuits that require a personal representative to pursue claims against third parties and defend claims made against Decedent.” A recent petition for discovery from Mac to his sister Hester Ann then listed the plaintiffs as Mac and “Geoffrey Scott Connor, as temporary administrator of the estate of Beauregard Brite White and individually as trustee.” A motion filed this week also tries to bolster the claim by pleading that Connors is a “duly-appointed Trustee of the Beauregard Brite White Trust.
The original Brite Ranch trust documents state that should Beau die, Hester Ann would succeed him as trustee. With that language in place it’s likely that Jim and Cuatro’s attorneys will object to Connor trying to assume the role of a trustee and plaintiff in the lawsuit.
Conner has never appeared in any of the hearings associated with the lawsuit against Jim — even though Cuatro’s attorneys have tried to have him take the stand on his adoption. It’s uncertain now whether naming himself as a trustee — legal or not — will change that dynamic.
Time is running out for sorting through several complicated motions on the case with only one hearing currently pending for July 11. The parties also have less than a month, until August 1, to finish discovery and depositions — leaving them a scant two weeks to prepare for the August 18 trial.
However, late Wednesday (after The Sentinel deadline), an attorney for Jim filed a motion to reset the trial date to November 3 or after — based on surgery Jim recently had on an injured ankle. The motion states that Jim would not be able to participate in the trial due to his lack of mobility — particularly with a courthouse elevator that isn’t reliable. (The Commissioners Court has approved a vendor to replace the elevator, but that work wouldn’t be complete by an August trial.)
Extreme heat also is cited in the motion. The first trial, which lasted two weeks in the Summer of 2023, was insufferable with a lack of air conditioning in the Marfa Courthouse, according to jurors and trial watchers interviewed by The Sentinel. A new HVAC system is in the works, but it could be stymied by some residents’ attempts to kill the issuance of certificate of obligation to fund it, and it wasn’t expected to be complete by the August trial regardless of the funding questions. The motion includes studies on the danger of high heat to seniors and others.
For more coverage of the trial, see the Brite Ranch page.