NO. AP-75,363 IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TEXAS ...

with Soffar, Schultz had to draw in much of the crime scene, including the counter inside
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the bowling alley. (29 RR 151). Det. Schultz’s interrogation made Sgt. Clawson
concerned about whether the police were obtaining accurate information. (29 RR 166).
Sgt. Clawson knew Max Soffar well as a police informant. (29 RR 103, 105-06).
Sgt. Clawson explained that Soffar’s information was “just not trustworthy,” and could
“never” be used to get a search warrant. (29 RR 128-29). According to Sgt. Clawson,
Max Soffar was always looking for “the big score” in life. (29 RR 131). Ten to fifteen
thousand dollars, Sgt. Clawson believed, would be a big score for Max Soffar. Id. Sgt.
Clawson came to know Soffar as having brains “fried” from the use of drug and alcohol,
and as like a ten or eleven year-old child. (29 RR 134).
Content of Max Soffar’s Putative Confessions
Soffar signed three written statements, prepared by detectives, in which he first
implicated Latt Bloomfield and then himself in robbery-murders at a bowling alley. He
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was convicted based solely upon these statements. Consistent with the prevailing view
that the robbery murders at the Fairlanes and the burglary there the night before were
linked, in Soffar’s first statement, on August 5, 1980, he told the police that he and Latt
Bloomfield burglarized a bowling alley and that the next night they drove to the same
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Similarly, Detective Kenny Williamson drew most of the parts of the diagram he used in his subsequent
interrogation with Soffar. (31 RR 61-62, 128-29, 131).
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See Soffar, 368 F.3d at 479 (summarizing lack of evidence linking Soffar to crime in terms equally applicable to
facts of retrial); (35 RR 25 (prosecution summation argument: “The Defendant tells you that he did it. What other
evidence do you need? That’s the best kind of evidence you’ll ever have in a case. What’s the one thing that can
ensure that you have no doubt. Words from a person. You don’t say you were some place if you weren’t. You don’t
ever say you shot somebody if you didn’t.”)).
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