AUSTIN — While the ongoing impeachment trial of Attorney General Ken Paxton stands as one of the most historic events in Texas political history, Friday’s proceedings upped the ante by producing a historic reunion of key figures involved in the tragic Waco Siege of 1993.
The prosecution called former Texas Ranger David Maxwell to the stand. Maxwell led an investigation into the federal siege in which 76 people died. Dick DeGuerin, an attorney for the House Board of Impeachment Managers, had been the personal attorney for Branch Davidian leader David Koresh. And Dan Cogdell, a member of Paxton’s defense team, previously defended one of the only survivors of the siege.
All three men found themselves in the Senate chambers that day, more than 20 years after the harrowing 51-day standoff between federal law enforcement agencies and the Branch Davidians at the latter’s Waco compound.
Koresh’s mother retained DeGuerin a few days after the siege began, following a botched search warrant execution that led to the deaths of four ATF agents and six Davidians. DeGuerin met with Koresh approximately five times before the fiery and tragic conclusion of the siege.
“My job, as I saw it then — and I still see it, was to show that the Davidians were protecting themselves from excessive force,” DeGuerin remembered in an interview with ABC 13 on the 25th anniversary of the event.
DeGuerin was not around when the FBI decided to end the siege by raiding the compound, eventually triggering a fire.
“I don’t believe Koresh or any of the others wanted to die,” he said.
As reported by The Dallas Express, Cogdell’s breakout case early in his career was his successful defense of Clive Doyle, one of only nine Davidians to survive the siege and “the only one that walked out of the courtroom.”
Doyle, who died in 2022, was one of the last surviving members of the Branch Davidians. The federal government had accused him of being one of the Davidians responsible for igniting the fire that burned down the compound, killing 76. Doyle’s own daughter was one of the dozens who died in the fire.
Cogdell became involved in Doyle’s case after receiving a call from another attorney — Dick DeGuerin.
“He called me up and … said, ‘I want you to represent Clive Doyle,’ and for free, I might add,” Cogdell said, per The Texas Lawbook. DeGuerin asked him to go and meet with Doyle in the hospital. “I said, ‘Sure, Dick, I’ll go visit Clive, but I’m making no promises that I’m going to represent him.’”
“I walked into his hospital room, and his legs were handcuffed and he was in custody,” Cogdell recalled. “And on CNN I was, in real-time, watching him find out that his daughter had perished in the fire.”
“And after spending a few minutes with him, I truly asked myself, ‘What kind of lawyer am I if I don’t volunteer to represent this guy under these circumstances where the government had engaged in the most horrific conduct I’d ever seen,’” he concluded.
The significance of the case and the lessons he learned from it dramatically affected Cogdell.
“[T]hirty years after the fact, part of the reason I still walk the floors at night and try as hard as I can is because I realize that defense lawyers are such an important part of the process. If we don’t stand up and defend people who are, in the eyes of many, indefensible — who will?” he explained to Lawdragon back in April.
Some five months later, Cogdell represents embattled Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. He cross-examined Maxwell and pressed him over his trust in the federal government.
For his part, former Ranger Maxwell had investigated the Waco Siege in its aftermath. As part of his investigation, he tried to identify the source of the law enforcement leak that alerted members of the news media to the pending raid, which in turn tipped off the Davidians.
Maxwell received a Director’s Award from the ATF for the “David Koresh Investigation.”
As of Friday’s impeachment trial proceedings, DeGuerin was 82, Maxwell was around 74, and Cogdell was about 66.