A few snips from a current article:
WASHINGTON Oct 11, 2005 — Indicted Rep. Tom DeLay's defense team tried Tuesday to serve Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle with a subpoena, but Earle refused to accept it, DeLay lawyer Dick DeGuerin said.
Alleging misconduct with grand jurors, the defense team wants to compel Earle to explain his behavior.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1204670&page=1
DeGuerin said acceptance of the subpoena was voluntary Tuesday because it had not been stamped by a court official, but added the defense team would go through the court procedure Wednesday and redeliver it. He said Earle, district attorney for Travis County, would then be obligated to accept the subpoena, but could file a motion to have it dismissed.
"DeGuerin is asking for all documents, notes, telephone records and other relevant materials from Earle's staff."
"I am determined to put on record the steps taken by you and your staff to obtain a replacement indictment against my client, Tom DeLay," DeGuerin said in a letter to the prosecutor."
"Earle then submitted the grand jury opinions to the third grand jury to persuade it to hand down the money laundering indictment, the defense team contended."
"In a motion filed last week, the defense team said that from Sept. 29 through Oct. 3, Earle and his staff "unlawfully participated in grand jury deliberations and attempted to browbeat and coerce" the grand jury that refused to indict DeLay."
Heh, your profile page is the first (other than my own) I've bookmarked.
I also posted the article to a parallel thread
" Delay Test on Delay":
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1498100/posts?page=58#58
In that thread there was some doubt, because of the pretrial nature of grand jury proceedings, that there would be a failure of the ripeness test for Delay to get into federal court on a Due Process issue. ( ie. that Delay would have to be in jail after sentencing before
a case could be brought in federal court!) Do you think that certiorari with mandamus in aid might be something that Guerin will pursue if he gets the evidence he needs from Earle's aids ?
I think we might be into a situation where there could be new law made here on the 14th amendment, that is if Guerin gets the evidence he's after via the subpoena process.
Wouldn't it be great if a federal court quashed the Texas indictment? I mean here we have the Republican House whip out of harness because of a politically motivated indictment? We are now living in interesting times!