Is This a Joke?
First, it was conspiracy. After 6 grand juries, Earle finally gets an indictment. The problem was you can’t conspire to break a law that is not in effect. The law cited in the indictment was not in effect until 2003; despite the fact the conspiracy took place in 2002. The indictment itself has no direct connection to DeLay (for those that have read it) except having his name as defendant.
After it becomes known that the indictment has in it no details or facts alleging a crime and the conspiracy is non-existent, Earle issues another indictment with a seventh grand jury on money laundering less than a week later giving that grand jury only hours with which to decide. In fact, the grand jury handed down this indictment over the telephone on the weekend!
Maybe I’m unusual, but if a prosecutor has to keep filing revisions to what charges he is charging someone with and keeps moving the bar, then in the end he just might not have anything at all. This is almost comical.
“Oops, we screwed up that last indictment. Let’s throw something else against the courtroom wall and see if it sticks.” I might have bought DeLay was corrupt with the first indictment, the “do-over” indictment proves that this is a politically motivated attack to maximize the chance of locking DeLay out of power long enough to do damage before this hack indictment mysteriously “goes away” just like the sham indictment he tried to put on Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.
Times reporter agrees to testify in CIA leak probe
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Trackback by Unpartisan.com Political News and Blog Aggregator | October 4, 2005
I know your not a lawyer, but most lawyers know that a re-indictment is frequently not the big deal you make it out to be. Often there may be a clerical error (such as the inclusion of a wrong statutory code) or additional evidence may have been uncovered to alter the charge slightly (possibly different penalties or different elements). Bottom line- wait to see what happens and don’t read too much into the fact that the earlier charges were amended.
RESPONSE:
This wasn’t a clerical error though, and it wasn’t even the same grand jury, it was changing the charges because the first one wasn’t even valid.
Comment by gazump | October 4, 2005
He may not be a lawyer but he likes to pretend to be one
Comment by Mark Hewitt | October 6, 2005