September 28, 2005

CONFUSING POLITICS WITH PROSECUTION (via Kevin Whited):

DeLay blames 'fanatic' DA for indictment (R.G. RATCLIFFE and JANET ELLIOTT, 9/28/05, Houston Chronicle)

"I have done nothing wrong ... I am innocent," DeLay told a Capitol Hill news conference in which he repeatedly criticized the prosecutor, Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle. DeLay called Earle a "unabashed partisan zealot," and "fanatic," and described the charges as "one of the weakest and most baseless indictments in American history."

In Austin, Earle told reporters, "Our job is to prosecute abuses of power and to bring those abuses to the public."


As Brother Whited points out, Mr. Earle's statement seems to concede Mr. DeLay's point. Mr. Earle is supposed to prosecute actual violations of the laws.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 28, 2005 6:12 PM
Comments

Was this indictment faxed over from the Kinko's store in Austin?

Posted by: obc at September 28, 2005 6:53 PM

If this case is thrown out by the trial judge, or the charges are dropped, is there any redress (i.e., a prosecutorial misconduct claim) against Earle?

Can Rick Perry remove him from office?

Posted by: jim hamlen at September 28, 2005 9:43 PM

Unfortunately, incompetence isn't grounds for removal in Texas. If it was, Earle would have been tossed over a decade ago when he never went to trial on the charges against Hutchison and proved to have no case against former Democratic AG and Ann Richards primary rival Jim Mattox.

Changing demographics in Travis County is the best hope for Earle's removal from office. Thanks to Austin the county remains a Blue island in a sea of Red counties in Texas, but the suburban population of the county has been growing so fast it was lamented by some of the local media during the county elections a few years ago while Austin city government remains firmly in Democratic hands, the Travis County government was starting to follow the rest of the state in trending Republican, which could spell trouble for Earle (there are some other geologic/topographic reasons in the Austin area why it hasn't happened faster, but when the new highway through Travis County east of I-35 is built in a few years, there may be enough suburban growth out there to finally flip the county's voting patterns by the end of the decade).

Posted by: John at September 28, 2005 9:56 PM
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