{"id":5601,"date":"2005-10-21T12:48:23","date_gmt":"2005-10-21T16:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=5601"},"modified":"2005-10-21T12:48:23","modified_gmt":"2005-10-21T16:48:23","slug":"delays-odd-new-legal-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/delays-odd-new-legal-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"DeLay’s odd new legal strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom DeLay made his first appearance in court this morning, but it’ll be a little while until he’s arraigned on conspiracy and money laundering charges. Apparently, he doesn’t like his judge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Inside the courtroom, Judge Bob Perkins told defense lawyer Dick DeGuerin that “the best way for me to handle” the request for a new judge would be to defer further proceedings.<\/p>\n

That set the stage for a pointed exchange between the two men that seemed as much a campaign debate as a courtroom exchange.<\/p>\n

In respectful tones, DeGuerin noted that Perkins had donated money to MoveOn.org, a liberal organization that he said has been “selling T-shirts with Mr. DeLay’s mug shot on it.”<\/p>\n

“Let me just say I haven’t ever seen that T-shirt, number one. Number two, I haven’t bought it. Number three, the last time I contributed to MoveOn that I know of was prior to the November election last year, when they were primarily helping Sen. Kerry,” responded the judge.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Since this will probably be one of the new talking points on Fox News, it’s worth noting that DeGuerin’s just wrong<\/a>. MoveOn.org does not, and has not, sold any such shirt.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, DeLay’s team seems intent on finding as Republican a setting as humanly possible. In addition to wanting a new judge, DeLay’s lawyers are asking to have the case moved out of Austin, because they believe the city is home to too many liberals.<\/p>\n

I guess the poor guy isn’t very confident in the merit of his defense.
\n
\nFor what it’s worth, the DA’s office is fighting the requests.<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Ronnie Earle signaled he intends to contest the request for a new judge.<\/p>\n

“What this means is if a judge had contributed to Crime Stoppers that judge could not hear a burglary case,” Earle said. “Carried to its extreme, that is what I think this motion means and I think that’s absurd.”<\/p>\n

“We don’t live in a country where political party determines the measure of justice,” Earle said, adding that he thought DeLay could get a fair trial in the state’s capital.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I hope he’s right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom DeLay made his first appearance in court this morning, but it’ll be a little while until he’s arraigned on conspiracy and money laundering charges. Apparently, he doesn’t like his judge. Inside the courtroom, Judge Bob Perkins told defense lawyer Dick DeGuerin that “the best way for me to handle” the request for a new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5601\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}