by TChris

Unsurprisingly, Tom DeLay would prefer to have his case heard by a judge who votes for Republicans rather than Democrats. The judge assigned to DeLay's case donated money to MoveOn prior to the last election, a fact that DeLay seized upon to ask the judge to remove himself from the case.

DeLay's lawyer argued that MoveOn has been "selling T-shirts with Mr. DeLay's mug shot on it," an assertion that MoveOn denies. Will that tenuous connection between the judge and anti-DeLay sentiment be enough to convince the judge to take himself off the case? It doesn't sound like it.

by TChris

A letter from Tom DeLay's lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, reveals that DeLay was offered the chance to plead guilty to a misdemeanor as an alternative to being indicted for a felony. The letter, which characterizes the offer as an attempt to coerce a plea from DeLay, accompanied a series of motions that DeGuerin filed in court. These include a motion for a speedy trial, a motion to dismiss the indictments for failure to allege wrongdoing by DeLay, and a motion seeking severance of DeLay's case from his co-defendants.'

by TChris

Attack ads have become commonplace in political races, but an attack ad against a prosecutor is unusual, to say the least.

A conservative group is running a TV ad likening the Democratic district attorney prosecuting House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to a vicious dog.
...

"A prosecutor with a political agenda can be vicious," the narrator says, while a snarling dog barks on screen.

The ads are in "heavy rotation" in Austin. Are DeLay's supporters hoping to taint the pool of potential jurors who may decide DeLay's fate?

by Last Night in Little Rock

Apparently feeding off the breast milk of Tom DeLay, WSJ's John Fund was caught on MSNBC's Chris Matthews repeating DeLay's own "cherry picked" statistics of Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earl's track record of prosecuting public officials, as noted by MediaMatters.org:

by Last Night in Little Rock

Rep. Tom DeLay's defense attorneys have subpoenaed DA Ronnie Earle and two assistants to testify concerning alleged improper contacts with the grand jurors that indicted DeLay as reported here in their effort to get the indictments dismissed. Earle and his assistants, however, refused the subpoena because they had not been issued by the court clerk, so defense counsel will have to get the clerk to issue the subpoena and do it again.

by Last Night in Little Rock

Texas Lawyer published an article today, republished on Law.com, that Dick DeGuerin's entry into the DeLay case makes it far tougher for Ronnie Earle: DeLay Case Pits DA in Rematch Against Prominent Criminal Defense Lawyer.

The article discusses the dynamics between Earle's office and DeGuerin as defender in high-profile cases, keying on the 1994 prosecution of Kay Bailey Hutchinson, then the Texas state Treasurer, running for U.S. Senate. The Hutchinson case was dismissed on directed verdict.

The article also interviews lawyers who opine that the case appears thin.

This is why lawyers don't want their clients to give TV interviews.

The Houston Chronicle reports Tom Delay said in media interviews that he hadn't been asked to speak to the grand jury. His lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, tells it a bit differently:

In a Wednesday night appearance on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, he said Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle never talked to him or asked him to testify. "Never asking me to testify, never doing anything for two years," DeLay said in the interview. "And then, on the last day of his fourth or sixth grand jury, he indicts me. Why? Because his goal was to make me step down as majority leader."

On Thursday, DeLay said in another broadcast interview that he was under the impression that he wasn't going to be indicted because he hadn't been called to testify before the grand jury. "I have not testified before the grand jury to present my side of the case, and they indicted me," said DeLay, according to the Associated Press.

Dick DeGuerin says:

DeLay actually was invited to appear before the grand jury, where he would have been under oath. The Houston attorney was not yet on the legal team when DeLay was asked to appear, but he said other attorneys advised him not to testify — a decision DeGuerin supports.

by Last Night in Little Rock

The Nation's website late yesterday posted an interesting article: DeLay Indictment: Beyond Damage Control? The bottom line: He has nothing to lose, and the target for the media should be the jury pool. An interesting read from a different perspective.

Even better, however, is ThinkProgress.com's Tom DeLay Exercises His Right To Incriminate Himself with a video link.

From the Texas Monthly, February, 2005, (available on Lexis.com: an article profiling Texas DA Ronnie Earle: Much of the article is flattering to Earle, but it also talks about Earle's failed attempt in 1993 to have then-Governor Ann Richards appoint him to be U.S. Senator when Lloyd Bentson left to join Clinton's cabinet. Instead, she appointed a conservative Democrat who went on to lose to Kay Bailey Hutchison in the election. The article describes Earles' humiliating retreat and surrender in the Hutchison case (she was ordered acquitted by the Court on the first day of the scheduled jury trial after he announced he wanted to drop the charges.) There was an issue as to admissibility of evidence which the judge refused to rule on before trial, and on the first day of trial, not knowing what the ruling would be, Earle told the judge he wanted to drop the charges.

That same year, after hearing evidence from Ronnie and the Public Integrity Unit, a grand jury indicted Hutchison on allegations of using state employees for personal and campaign tasks and then destroying state files that documented the abuse. Hutchison was outraged by the indictments, as were two political advisers named Karl Rove and Karen Hughes. In seeking the Senate appointment from Richards, Ronnie had left himself open for an effective counterspin: The guy didn't get to be the senator, so he went after Hutchison in a fit of jealousy and spite.

Here's what happened:

by Last Night in Little Rock

According to today's NY Times, as soon as Roy Blunt became Majority Whip, he was pounced on for his own ethical lapses. Out numbered and outgunned, the Democrats have been hiding. With the Republican leadership wounded, they are coming out.

Tom DeLay's lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, says he's considering making a motion to move the trial out of Travis County. He is weighing the benefits of the motion against the effect it would have on a speedy trial. He'd like to get a jury seated before the end of the year, but that could be problematic if venue were changed.

The head of U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay's legal team said Thursday that he might seek to have his client's trial moved out of Austin, saying that one of Texas' last remaining liberal citadels might not be able to give the Sugar Land Republican a fair shake. "That's something we're considering," said Dick DeGuerin, a high-profile lawyer who is no stranger to criminal cases tinged with Texas politics. "Everything is on the table, but nothing's been decided."

Although no trial date has been set for DeLay, DeGuerin said he plans to ask the judge to expedite the process by either dismissing the charge against him or seating a jury before the year is out. An Austin lawyer with more than three decades of experience defending some of Texas' best-known political figures, DeGuerin said that if DeLay insists on a speedy trial, he will probably have to place his fate in the hands of jurors from Travis County.

A small correction, Dick's office is in Houston, not Austin. Anyway, two other lawyers quoted in the article disagree about whether DeLay could get an unbiased jury in Travis County, with the Republican asserting the jury isn't as important as the Judge, and that DeLay couldn't get an unbiased judge in that county. That seems like a big stretch to me. But, I am no expert on Texas judicial politics, if there is such a thing.

A third lawyer, whom I know and trust implicitly, is also quoted in the article:

Tom DeLay's arraignment has been set for October 21. A poster at Daily Kos speculates he already has a plea bargain and will plead no contest. He bases this on the Indictment which mentions DeLay's waiver of the statute of limitations (which I referenced in the comments section here) and his having gone in for talks with prosecutors ( discussed here.)

I doubt it. First of all, I don't think Dick DeGuerin was representing DeLay at the time he waived the statute of limitations or when he went in for talks, and that his prior (or newly subjugated) counsel arranged both. This article says DeGuerin only recently has become involved in the case.