DELAY TEST ON DELAY (hmmm, an interesting insight on Tom Delay's situation)

Nealz Nuze 10-06-05 ^ | 10/06/05 | Neal boortz

[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)

[Torie]

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.

[Dog Gone]

Maybe Texas is Louisiana east.

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.

[AmishDude]

Actually, it was a cheap joke on the Federalist party. I do that sometimes.

[skinkinthegrass]

This is so yesterday! Rush was all over it...I'm not much of a Boortz fan....

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

[Torie]

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.

[Candor7]

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 $$$ ??

[Torie]

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.

[decal]

"BTW, since he's elected by the people of Travis county, but has jurisdiction over the whole state, isn't that unconstitutional?"

Apparently not - there's some quirk in the state Constitution, I suppose:

"Besides his traditional role as prosecutor, Earle, as Travis County D.A., has the unique duty of heading up the state's Public Integrity Unit."

http://archive.jdedman.com/100396.htm

[XenaLee]

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.

[AmishDude]

Yeah. I'm arguing that that violates due process.

[skinkinthegrass]

I have no doubt he is the most nortorious unindicted felon in American history, with the number of his felonies in double digits.

..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.

[operation clinton cleanup]

Then after getting hammered on the Sunday talk shows, he empanelled a brand new grand jury under the order of a Democrat judge and got a new indictment on money-laundering even before the jurors knew each other's names or where the restroom was.

The grassy knoll grand jury?

[crasher]

on the whole i would obviously agree with you. I would rank Hoover, Pierce, Buchanan, possibly Nixon (and come to think of it - with the horrible management leading up to and during War of 1812 - why is Madison not real high on the list... not that I am saying all of his negatives as President do much to diminish his greatness overall) as worse I think.

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.

[Candor7]

"...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.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Louisiana is a political cesspool everywhere. Texas has isolated pockets.

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.

[D-fendr]

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?

[Candor7]

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.

---

http://www.nationalreview.com/mccarthy/mccarthy200510060733.asp

Ronnie Earle Should Not Be a Prosecutor
The abuses of power in the Tom DeLay case should offend Democrats and Republicans alike.



If there is one thing liberals and conservatives ought to be able to agree on, it is this: Ronnie Earle, district attorney of Travis County, Texas, has no business wielding the enormous powers of prosecution.




I don't know Congressman Tom DeLay, the House Majority Leader. I certainly don't know if he's done anything illegal, let alone something so illegal as to warrant indictment. It doesn't look like it — and at least one grand jury has already refused to indict him (a fact Earle appears to have tried to conceal from the public as he scrambled to find a new grand jury that would). Yet experience shows it is foolhardy for those who don't know all the facts to hazard a judgment about such things.

One thing is sure, though, and it ought to make anyone who cares about basic fairness angry. The investigation of DeLay, a matter of national gravity is being pursued with shocking ethical bankruptcy by the district attorney — by Ronnie Earle.

For nearly 20 years, I had the privilege of being a prosecutor in the best law-enforcement office in the United States, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. Being a prosecutor is the world's greatest job because it is honest work for the highest cause — service to one's own community. And it is work that has precious little to do with politics.

In their private lives, many of my fellow government lawyers were political independents, either by design (i.e., out of a conscious rectitude holding that law enforcement should be above politics) or because they were just apolitical. Most, as one would expect in New York, were Democrats. A large percentage, as, again, one would expect from a group of mostly young people educated in top schools, was proudly liberal. Over coffee, or lunch, or dinner, they and we few, hardy conservatives would have spirited debates over all manner of issues.

In the four corners of a case, however, none of that mattered a wit. Within those four corners, there were rules and responsibilities. There was recognition that prosecutors have breathtaking power over the lives of those they investigate. Power inarguably vital to the rule of law. But power which, if used recklessly or maliciously, can leave lives in tatters. The lives not only of the innocent and the guilty, but of the justice system itself.

This was especially so in investigations of political corruption. We prosecuted Republicans and Democrats, in about equal measure. The cases were hard, but checking your politics at the door was never hard, for at least two reasons.

First, there tends to be nothing ideological about the crimes committed by politicians. They are a stew of pettiness, greed and above-it-all arrogance over which neither party has a monopoly, and the offensiveness of which cuts across philosophical divides.

Second, some wrongs are simply not intended to be crimes. Among them are political wrongs: sleazy abuses of power, cronyism, most acts of nepotism, half-truths or outright lies in campaigns, etc. In a free society, these get sorted out in our bumptious political system. Usually, absent shades of financial fraud, bribery, and extortion, prosecutors should stay their hands. There are too many real crimes to waste resources on that sort of thing. More significantly, the risk of criminalizing politics would only discourage honest citizens from participating in matters of public concern.

The code prosecutors live by is not a liberal or conservative one. It is a code of ethics — of nonpartisan, non-ideological honor. Of course many prosecutors are ambitious. Of course prosecutors want to win. But even the ambitious ones who care a bit too much about winning quickly learn that success is intimately tied to doing things the right way. And not least because that is the norm their colleagues follow — as well as the standard by which the defense bar and the judiciary (populated by no small percentage of former prosecutors) scrutinize them. It is, moreover, the standard the public demands they meet.

People want to see the guilty convicted, but they also want to feel good about the way it is done. The prosecutor is the public's lawyer, and his duty is not merely to get the job done but to get it done right. The second part is just as crucial as the first. They are equal parts of doing justice. No one expects perfection, which is unattainable in any human endeavor. But if the outcomes of the justice system are to be regarded as legitimate, as befitting a decent society, people have to be confident that if they stood accused, the prosecutor would enforce their rights and make sure they got a fair fight.

So there are certain things that are just flat-out verboten. Most basic are these: to resist public comment about non-public, investigative information; to abjure any personal stake in the litigation that could suggest decisions regarding the public interest are being made to suit the prosecutor's private interests; and — if all that is not Sesame Street simple enough — to remain above any financial or political entanglement that could render one's objectivity and judgment suspect.

In the profession, these things come under the hoary rubric of "avoiding the appearance of impropriety." In layman's terms, they are about having an I.Q. high enough that you know to put your socks on before your shoes. This is bedrock stuff. It is central to the presumption of innocence, due process, and equal protection under the law that prosecutors owe even the most despicable offenders. It is foundational to the integrity of the system on which rest our security, our economy, and our freedoms.

And Ronnie Earle has flouted it in embarrassing, mind-numbingly brazen ways.

As Byron York has been reporting on NRO (see here, here, and here), Earle has partnered up with producers making a movie, called The Big Buy, about his Ahab's pursuit of DeLay. A movie about a real investigation? Giving filmmakers access to investigative information while a secret grand-jury probe is underway? Allowing them to know who is being investigated and why? To view proposed indictments even before the grand jury does? Allowing them into the sanctuary of the grand jury room, and actually to film grand jurors themselves? Creating a powerful incentive — in conflict with the duty of evenhandedness — to bring charges on flimsy evidence? For a prosecutor, these aren't just major lapses. They are firing offenses. For prosecutors such as those I worked with over the years, from across the political spectrum, I daresay they'd be thought firing-squad offenses.

Attending partisan fundraisers in order to speak openly about an ongoing grand jury investigation against an uncharged public official. As a moneymaking vehicle.

Penning a nakedly partisan op-ed (in the New York Times on November 23, 2004) about the political fallout of his grand-jury investigation of DeLay, then uncharged.

Settling cases by squeezing businesses to make hefty financial contributions to pet personal causes in exchange for exercising the public's power to dismiss charges.

Secretly shopping for new grand juries when, despite the incalculable advantages the prosecution has in that forum, the earlier grand jurors have found the case too weak to indict.

Ignoring the commission by members of his own party of the same conduct that he seeks to brand felonious when engaged in by members of the other party.

Such actions and tactics are reprehensible. They constitute inexcusably dishonorable behavior on the part of a public servant, regardless of whether the persons and entities investigated were in the wrong. They warrant universal censure.

If Congressman DeLay did something illegal, he, like anyone else, should be called to account. But he, like anyone else, is entitled to procedural fairness, including a prosecutor who not only is, but also appears to be, fair and impartial.

Ronnie Earle is not that prosecutor. He has disgraced his profession, and done grievous disservice to thousands of federal, state, and local government attorneys. Prosecutors of all persuasions whose common bond is a good faith commitment to the rules — but who will now bear the burden of suspicions fostered by Earle's excesses.

The burden, but not the cost. That will be borne by the public.

— Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

[D-fendr]

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.

[Bigun]

The man is a pig, and an eternal stain on the state of Texas, forever, until our species dies out.

And, as a Texan, you will get no argument from me. In fact, you are being to kind IMHO!

[tje]

bump