The Discerning Texan
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
-- Edmund Burke
Friday, October 07, 2005
UPDATED: Motion filed accusing DA Ronnie Earle of Prosecutorial misconduct--details below
BREAKING NEWS:
Congressman Tom DeLay's attorney, Dick DeGuerin, has filed a motion in a Travis County court today, accusing DA Ronnie Earle of "prosecutorial misconduct". This motion, if carried, could result in punitive action against the overzealous Earle, and could also result in dismissal of Earle's strawman of a "case" against DeLay. Here is the AP story, via Breitbart.com and Drudge:
Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's legal team asked Friday for his Texas indictments to be set aside, accusing the prosecutor of misconduct.
DeLay's attorney, Dick DeGuerin, alleged in a court motion that Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle unlawfully participated in grand jury deliberations when he went to a second grand jury last week to seek a second indictment against the congressman.
DeGuerin also alleged that Earle "attempted to browbeat and coerce" the second grand jury to change its decision not to indict DeLay so there would be no public record of a rejection.
DeGuerin said the indictment forced DeLay to step down from his job as majority leader, the No. 2 position in the U.S. House, for a crime that did not exist in Texas law.
DeLay was indicted Sept. 28 on a charge of conspiracy as a grand jury's term was expiring. But questions were raised about whether the law on which the indictment was based was in effect at the time of the alleged conspiracy.
Earle went to a second grand jury still in session, but that grand jury declined to vote an indictment. On Monday, a third grand jury indicted DeLay on money laundering charges.
Earle's office did not immediately comment.
[...]
Two people familiar with the proceedings of the grand jury that "no- billed" DeLay said that Earle tried to persuade the grand jurors that DeLay tacitly approved the scheme and that the prosecutor became angry when they decided against an indictment. The people familiar with the proceeding insisted on anonymity because of grand jury secrecy.
As details continue to come out about Ronnie Earle's laughable indictment against Majority Leader DeLay, the mainstream media suddenly is nowhere to be found. Fortunatlely the truth cannot be supressed. Generation Why has an excellent acccount of the events that occurred between Earle the Zealot and three different grand juries between Friday and Monday of last week:
Finally after years of prosecuting and six months of grand jury review, Ronnie Earle thought he had his man. But almost as soon as the ink on the indictment dried, it was promptly laughed about by those in the legal profession.
Even the foreman of that grand jury admitted his mind was made up before any evidence was presented.
So Ronnie Earle tried a do-over on Friday. This time, according to a written statement Earle released yesterday, he tried presenting a new money-laundering charge. This seventh grand jury to review the case promptly No-Billed it.
So he tried again. This time he had to wait over the weekend for a new grand jury to be empaneled on Monday. Within hours of the jury empanelment on Monday, he had gotten his new indictment. He claims the new charges were based on "learn[ing] of new evidence over the weekend". But these were the same charges he took to a new grand jury on FRIDAY. This is so transparent it's laughable.
What's worse, Earle's staff admits to calling the members of grand jury #6 to ask them about strategy for going after Delay on new charges. It's not often you see prosecutors asking jury members for help prosecuting their case.
So here we have a known political hack prosecuting a highly effective politician for years. He finally gets an indictment on the brink of the deadline to do so and it promptly gets ridiculed for its obvious ridiculousness. The indictment doesn't really allege any crimes and the charges it does allege are based on a law enacted a year after the alleged acts took place. So the prosecutor shops the case around some more and promptly gets rejected by yet another grand jury. He rushes to the courthouse on Monday morning and tries again. This time he gets a new indictment on charges based on "evidence learned over the weekend", yet he had already presented such charges to a 7th grand jury before the weekend.
This case would be laughable if it wasn't obvious the primary objective had already been achieved - that of removing the second most powerful Republican in Washington from his leadership position in Congress.
It now appears that Earle will have to do some serious scrambling--not only to keep the indictment of DeLay in effect, but also to defend himself against the charges of his abusing the Texas Criminal Courts system, and punitive action that could occur under such circumstances. It would not surprise me to see this case either dismissed very soon--or at the very least the unethical conduct of Earle will come under a lot more legal, local, and even national scrutiny.
Congressman Tom DeLay's attorney, Dick DeGuerin, has filed a motion in a Travis County court today, accusing DA Ronnie Earle of "prosecutorial misconduct". This motion, if carried, could result in punitive action against the overzealous Earle, and could also result in dismissal of Earle's strawman of a "case" against DeLay. Here is the AP story, via Breitbart.com and Drudge:
Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's legal team asked Friday for his Texas indictments to be set aside, accusing the prosecutor of misconduct.
DeLay's attorney, Dick DeGuerin, alleged in a court motion that Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle unlawfully participated in grand jury deliberations when he went to a second grand jury last week to seek a second indictment against the congressman.
DeGuerin also alleged that Earle "attempted to browbeat and coerce" the second grand jury to change its decision not to indict DeLay so there would be no public record of a rejection.
DeGuerin said the indictment forced DeLay to step down from his job as majority leader, the No. 2 position in the U.S. House, for a crime that did not exist in Texas law.
DeLay was indicted Sept. 28 on a charge of conspiracy as a grand jury's term was expiring. But questions were raised about whether the law on which the indictment was based was in effect at the time of the alleged conspiracy.
Earle went to a second grand jury still in session, but that grand jury declined to vote an indictment. On Monday, a third grand jury indicted DeLay on money laundering charges.
Earle's office did not immediately comment.
[...]
Two people familiar with the proceedings of the grand jury that "no- billed" DeLay said that Earle tried to persuade the grand jurors that DeLay tacitly approved the scheme and that the prosecutor became angry when they decided against an indictment. The people familiar with the proceeding insisted on anonymity because of grand jury secrecy.
As details continue to come out about Ronnie Earle's laughable indictment against Majority Leader DeLay, the mainstream media suddenly is nowhere to be found. Fortunatlely the truth cannot be supressed. Generation Why has an excellent acccount of the events that occurred between Earle the Zealot and three different grand juries between Friday and Monday of last week:
Finally after years of prosecuting and six months of grand jury review, Ronnie Earle thought he had his man. But almost as soon as the ink on the indictment dried, it was promptly laughed about by those in the legal profession.
Even the foreman of that grand jury admitted his mind was made up before any evidence was presented.
So Ronnie Earle tried a do-over on Friday. This time, according to a written statement Earle released yesterday, he tried presenting a new money-laundering charge. This seventh grand jury to review the case promptly No-Billed it.
So he tried again. This time he had to wait over the weekend for a new grand jury to be empaneled on Monday. Within hours of the jury empanelment on Monday, he had gotten his new indictment. He claims the new charges were based on "learn[ing] of new evidence over the weekend". But these were the same charges he took to a new grand jury on FRIDAY. This is so transparent it's laughable.
What's worse, Earle's staff admits to calling the members of grand jury #6 to ask them about strategy for going after Delay on new charges. It's not often you see prosecutors asking jury members for help prosecuting their case.
So here we have a known political hack prosecuting a highly effective politician for years. He finally gets an indictment on the brink of the deadline to do so and it promptly gets ridiculed for its obvious ridiculousness. The indictment doesn't really allege any crimes and the charges it does allege are based on a law enacted a year after the alleged acts took place. So the prosecutor shops the case around some more and promptly gets rejected by yet another grand jury. He rushes to the courthouse on Monday morning and tries again. This time he gets a new indictment on charges based on "evidence learned over the weekend", yet he had already presented such charges to a 7th grand jury before the weekend.
This case would be laughable if it wasn't obvious the primary objective had already been achieved - that of removing the second most powerful Republican in Washington from his leadership position in Congress.
It now appears that Earle will have to do some serious scrambling--not only to keep the indictment of DeLay in effect, but also to defend himself against the charges of his abusing the Texas Criminal Courts system, and punitive action that could occur under such circumstances. It would not surprise me to see this case either dismissed very soon--or at the very least the unethical conduct of Earle will come under a lot more legal, local, and even national scrutiny.
