Posted on 10/05/2005 9:46:43 AM PDT by flattorney
Maybe Travis County DA Ronnie Earle was just being careful when he persuaded a new grand jury to issue another indictment of U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay as its first order of business. But even without the heated rhetoric of DeLay's lead attorney, Houston's Dick DeGuerin, it made some Democrats nervous. "This is a mess," DeGuerin said Monday, while Earle was silent on his reasons. "This looks like the Keystone Kops."
Even-handed mishandler ---------------------- Money laundering is a first-degree felony with a penalty intended for drug kingpins: a maximum of life in prison. Earle included some new evidentiary detail in the new indictment, but like the first one, it gave no specifics about DeLay himself.
The resulting impression is of a quickie indictment that recalls Earle's earlier history. I'm not just talking about Earle's mishandling of the case against U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. I'm talking about the fact that he has been an even-handed mishandler. In fact, he's mishandled more cases against Democrats than against Republicans, probably for the simple reason that Democrats were in power for most of Earle's nearly 30 years in office.
Torpedoed his own case ---------------------- Not that Earle hasn't had successes. He won a five-year prison sentence for a Democratic Supreme Court justice convicted of forgery and lying to a grand jury. And he won convictions, if on minor charges, against a Democratic state treasurer and a speaker of the state House of Representatives. All told, at least 10 Democrats and three Republicans either pleaded guilty or were convicted of corruption charges brought by Earle.
Hutchison is the best-remembered of Earle's failures, partly because it's the most recent (1994) and partly because DeLay supporters beat it like a drum. To this day, nobody has authoritatively explained why Earle torpedoed his own case against Hutchison when, at the start of the trial, the judge said he would rule on the admissibility of evidence as the trial progressed, not in advance.
But even before Earle suffered that setback, he had let two very large Democratic fish get away. He investigated then-state Comptroller Bob Bullock in 1978 for use of state equipment and planes for political purposes but didn't get an indictment. At least part of the reason apparently was because a judge ruled he gathered evidence with a grand jury subpoena rather than with a search warrant — a technique that dogged him in the Hutchison case.
Then there was the reportedly dismal performance of his office in the 1985 bribery trial of then-Attorney General Jim Mattox. Mattox, a liberal Democrat, was acquitted by a jury and re-elected by the public.
But it is the Hutchison case that causes the most nervousness. DeGuerin represented Hutchison as he now represents DeLay. DeGuerin twice persuaded the court to throw out indictments against Hutchison before she went to trial, once because of an ineligible grand juror and once because of poorly drawn indictments. DeGuerin will fight hard for similar results this time, and Monday's quickie indictment did not instill a sense of sure-footedness by Earle.
"...my name is Earle, and I have a whole lotta stuff to answer for..."
My favorite part about Earle's "quickie indictment" on Monday is "...it made some Democrats nervous"
"DA Ronnie Earle Blew More Dems in Cases"
Better title?
Dick DeGuerin will beat incompetent Ronnie Earle like a borrowed mule. There is no case here against "Teflon Tom". 2-bit Ronnie Earle is totally out of his league. My brother is one of the top criminal attorney's in Texas and he is a life-time conservative Democrat. Even he said Earle has no case here and bought himself a LOT of trouble over this DeLay indictments. He also said a number of very major Democrat donor "money cows" in Texas, are furious over this DeLay indictment and Earle's total incompetence.
The Texas Public Integrity Unit should be made a part of the state's AG office, and headed by an independent non-partisan attorney general.
Elected partisan Democrat hack DA Ronnie Earle is not competent to run this office.
"He also said a number of very major Democrat donor "money cows" in Texas, are furious over this DeLay indictment and Earle's total incompetence."
Of course they are mad. Earle's ability to indict corporations and politicians for acts that are both legal and done by both parties and all sides is sowing distress and confusion everywhere in the money-raising circles.
Earle is a total loose cannon.
Earle included some new evidentiary detail in the new indictment, but like the first one, it gave no specifics about DeLay himself.It went from having "new evidence against Delay" to "new evidentiary detail" not specific to Delay.The resulting impression is of a quickie indictment that recalls Earle's earlier history.
In other words, there is no reason at all to indict Delay again by the same offense. None.
I don't recall anything more blatantly unfair coming from a corrupt DA. Perhaps, my memory is bad.
Earle belongs in jail.
His tactics smack of those of a police state.
But .. saying Earle prosecuted DEMOCRATS is really a mis-nomer. According to DeLay, at the time Earle was doing that, there were no republicans in the TX state legislature. There were only CONSERVATIVE-DEMOCRATS. People who later left the dem party and switched to the repub party.
Don't know whose incompetence is worse--LA Blanco & NO Nagin or Travis Cty DA Earle's. Sad state of affairs!
>>>The Texas Public Integrity Unit should be made a part of the state's AG office, and headed by an independent non-partisan attorney general.<<<
You hit the nail on the head.
Secondly, it was obvious that Earle had a "pocket" Grand Jury on the second indictments. Any good criminal attorney will tap dance all over Earle and the Judge in the case over this matter.
Third, DeGuerin said he sent a letter to Earle, withdrawing DeLay's agreement to waive the Statute of Limitations for 30 days BEFORE the second indictments was handed down.
Fourth, Earle's entire case against DeLay is over ONE transaction, that does not specifically, with direct stated facts, nail DeLay. These 2-bit DeLay indictments are not like the major Enron criminal indictments where there was hard prima facia evidence through-out the individual indictments.
All DeGuerin has to do is find ONE technical defect in these indictments, on the ONE single transaction, to blow them out of the water. Based on the facts, as I understand them, DeGuerin should have an easy go of it.
It has to be ronnie earle, he has had decades of practice.
Who oversees a county District Attorney (other than the voters)? What office would have jurisdiction to charge one with abuse of power or prosecutorial misconduct, or something like that?
The Democrats' other goal was to establish in the public's mind that any money DeLay raised and gave out is tainted, and therefore any other House Republican (i.e. most of them) who took money from DeLay is corrupt. I'm afraid they have been pretty successful there too.
However, none of this is going to matter in the long run. Democrats are Stuck on Stupid here; they still believe that if you bring down the person the party will fall apart, and all you need is a bogeyman to run against and people will vote for you. They have learned nothing in 10 years since they got Newt Gingrich and Bob Livingston. The House Republican majority will survive the loss of Tom DeLay, and by next year's elections he will be such old news that they will look ridiculous trying to use DeLay as an issue against other Republicans.
I would guess the State AG or even a Federal Attorney would.
The people who believe that crap wouldn't have been Delay supporters in the first case...so who is harmed? In my opinion, Delay and his lawyeres aren't hitting back nearly hard enough. They need to hammer Earle AND go after the democrats in congress who are running their mouths as if this were a legitimate charge.
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