Posted on 10/06/2005 6:53:07 PM PDT by rawhide
DELAYTEST ON DELAY
You've heard this one, haven't you? Well, maybe not. I'm not sure --- just guessing --- but this won't make it to the Washington Post or the New York Times, unless you find it buried in the lower inside corner of page 25. It's about the foreman of the Texas grand jury that returned that first indictment on Tom Delay. The foreman's name is William Gibson. He is in his mid-70s. Yesterday morning he told our Austin affiliate KLBJ that he had made up his mind to indict Tom Delay long before he heard one piece of evidence presented by prosecutor Ronnie Earle. And why was he determined to indict Tom Delay? Because, it seems, he didn't like some campaign advertisements that Delay ran in the newspapers during his last reelection campaign. Here's what Gibson told KLBJ:
All this came out way before I was on the grand jury, these (ads) were in your paper, in Austin paper, everyone else's paper, they was flooding the market around here. But those were way before I ever went on the grand jury and my decision was based upon those, not what might have happened in the grand jury room. So .. here you have the foreman of the first grand jury to indict Delay making a rather astonishing admission that his decision was made on the bases of campaign ads he just didn't like.
Wait! There's more!...(continued below)
Is that a reference to the Alien and Sedition Act? As you know, the elaboration of federal and state powers was not in play then. SCOTUS was inactive. Smiting federalist perspetives for that is a red herring. As Madison noted, the larger the public square, the more effective the checks and balances of the competing interests. Pluralism to really work requires a national stage, and we are one nation.
West, actually, and the comparison is not at all accurate. I have lived in both states.
Louisiana is a political cesspool everywhere. Texas has isolated pockets.
Actually, it was a cheap joke on the Federalist party. I do that sometimes.
Actually, It was quite entraining/Informative, the two of them, working together..across the country, ripping Ronnie Earle a "new one" after every commercial break...
Ronnie Earle is gonna wish, He never heard of Tom DeLay. :D
Ya, and I meant Louisiana west. I do suffer from vertigo now and then and it sucks (aging sucks), but I can still read a map.
Not with the evidence that is now acumulating on the process in which he was indicted.
Tom Delay does have civil rights, and they have been violated. There will be no political trial of Tom Delay in Texas, and if the Texas court proceeds on this bogus indictment, that is enough to satisfy the jurisdiction of the federal court to take up the matter.
Wanna Bet some $$$ ??
Sure. Federal courts don't intervene until a final judgment has been rendered in state court, and then maybe not until the state appelate courts have had their say. This might get to federal court in 2007, if things move relatively quickly, and Delay ends up in jail, or at least convicted.
It reminds me of Gore and Daley in Florida....intent on counting and recounting the ballots until they managed to come out the winners. (more like wieners, if you ask me)
Dems circumvent the law and make it up as they go along, all in the good 'cause' of implementing their ""compassionate"" liberal agenda. My question is, why do we keep letting them get away with it? Anybody else's (anybody that was a Republican, that is) career would be over after the stunts some of the Dems have pulled.
Earle should, at the very least, be disbarred.
Yeah. I'm arguing that that violates due process.
..wasn't he rumored, to have had a shadowy "Fix-It Guy" (think one-man "Little Rock Mafia") while in office. ...He had an office and "everything" at his disposal.
The grassy knoll grand jury?
The thing is LBJ accomplished some really good things: Civil Rights being foremost, but also investment in education and health care, as well as immigration act of 1965.
"...No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privilege or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
The last time a case was decided in federal court on the state indictment process was Hurtado v. California (1884).
The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution allows the federal courts to become involved in state cases if one of the rights protected (meaning incorporated) by the 14th Amendment comes into play. The 14th Amendment offers significant protection for personal liberties in that it opens the federal courts to those who are unsatisfied with the decisions of state courts when an incorporated (applicable) federal constitutional provision is called into question.
In addition, the 14th Amendment allows persons to sue in federal court if they believe that a state law or regulation deprives them of the "equal protection of the laws."
Delay was given a Bill of No Return, and Mr. Prosecutor delayed having it signed by a judge for three days so he could brow beat another newly empanelled grand jury into issue an indictment.
There is no indictment in the delay case. Prosecutors failure to have the No Bill signed in 3 days is a violation of due process. Case Closed.And if the Texas court doesn't follow that reasoning , then a federal court will be teaching constitutional law to the State of Texas. Delay won't sit and wait for a trial on the merits.
Prosecutor can go to a dozen more Grand Juries, unless its a different charge than the one currently brought it still will be " no bill". There is No Bill in the case itself.
Delay has this ammo in tube one, and right now they are pulling back the trigger.
Go get 'em Tom, and then retire to that ranch and take it easy. You've earned it.
Which is itself and argument against Federalism. Better to have a few isolated cesspools that one large one which controls all. What if we had a run of LBJ's and Slick Willies?
I also have lived in Louisiana and Texas and I agree with you.
Let me see if I understand what you're saying.
Since the Grand Jury on Friday No Billed on these charges, a future grand jury cannot indict on the same charges? Is that correct?
Do you think Earle may have an out with his "new evidence over the weekend" ploy? Could he present "new evidence" on the same charges to a different grand jury and get a valid indictment?
Take a look at the mounting evidence on Earles conduct
below.
I would say that new law is about to be made concerning due process and the due process clauses of the 5th or 14th ammendments. There is a national movement in the USA about the prosecutorial abuse of Grand Jury Process. Delay may well proceed in a federal court and be successful.
Why would any prosecutor delay the signing by a judge of a" No True Bill" return for over three clear days? Most Grand Juries will indict a ham sandwich. That one would not. Now Earle is justifying that by a sudden discovery of new evidence. It would be intersting to see what that new evidence was, because there likely wasn't any, especially given the context of Earle's recent conduct summarized below. In my opinion Delay's Due Process Rights have been violated. The question is, what would a federal court look
at? I guess that the " No True Bill" will be regarded as
having been judicially signed, effectively ending the prosecutors ability to forward a probable cause case on that evidence. Now if he has new evidence which when combined with the old evidence would warrent a true bill,
AND Earle also witheld exculpatory evidence simultaneously,
a federal court would say that there is no indictment. Earle would be forced into a preliminary hearing situation on the case, and he probably hasn't got enough evidence
to even successfully get through a peliminary hearing, or he would not have gone to the Grand Jury anyway.
Prosecution and politiics don't mix, and the 14th ammendment can be invoked to straighten this prosecutorial
infringement of due process. Its just a matter of how a federal court might accomplish it. Its just new law
and right now Republican prosecutors from across the country are lining up to tell Delay, " take it to federal court!" I think they are right! Earle is an out of control prosecutor who has violated the constitutional guarantee of due process of Tom Delay.
Thanks very much, I understand a lot better now. Appreciate the article also.
Three grand juries in a week has a sniff test problem, even I can see that.
Now I'll pay particular attention to what Earle's "new" evidence was precisely; and, exactly why did the no bill take so long to get signed and posted. Hope we do find out soon...
Thanks again, very much.
And, as a Texan, you will get no argument from me. In fact, you are being to kind IMHO!
bump
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