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Paxton tries again – and fails – to get a new judge

May 12th, 2017
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Never give up, never surrender, I guess.

Best mugshot ever

Attorney General Ken Paxton’s criminal defense lawyers filed a motion Wednesday arguing the judge assigned to oversee his securities fraud trial is ineligible to oversee the case because his appointment was temporary.

Legal experts say the argument appears dubious as Paxton’s legal team looks for ways to secure a new judge in a high-profile legal battle that could decide the political fate of the state’s most embattled Republican.

“Big firms fight for every inch,” said Edward Mallett, a Houston criminal defense lawyer. “I admire the lawyers for being scrappy.”

The motion argues that any rulings District Judge George Gallagher has made in the attorney general’s case since in 2017 should be “vacated and declared void,” including his decision to move the trial out of Paxton’s back yard of Collin County and into Harris County. The case should be reassigned to a new Collin County jurist who assumed office in January, according to the motion.

[…]

Paxton’s legal team filed the motion with Judge Mary Murphy, the presiding judge of the First Administrative Judicial Region, arguing she had assigned Gallagher to her region until Dec. 31, 2016, which should render rulings he’s made since then null and void.

She assigned Gallagher to hear cases in the region on July 29, 2015 to last “until the plenary power has expired or the undersigned Presiding Judge has terminated this assignment in writing, whichever occurs first.”

“Plenary power” refers to a court’s power to dispose of a matter before it, according to Black’s Law Dictionary. That means Gallagher likely has the power to stay with the case until the end, regardless when his time in the judicial region expires, said Mallett, past president of the national, state and county association of criminal defense lawyers. He said the filing’s lack of reference to case law likely reveals that Paxton’s legal team is looking for creative ways to remove the judge without past precedent to back up their arguments.

“This is Texas: issues not clearly controlled by precedent are influenced by politics. The law is art and science combined,” said Mallett.

See here, here, and here for the background. The Trib adds some details.

In their Wednesday filing, Paxton’s lawyers said Gallagher had “no authority” to make rulings in 2017 because his assignment to the case expired at midnight on Dec. 31, 2016. They base that claim on an assignment order that has not previously come to light in the case.

In addition to the order to change the venue, Gallagher’s rulings this year included denials of motions to dismiss and to delay until prosecutors can get paid. The judge declined to comment through a spokeswoman on the Wednesday filing.

Gallagher, who is from Tarrant County, has presided over the case since its early days in 2015, when Collin County’s Chris Oldner stepped aside due to his ties to Paxton. Oldner did not seek re-election in 2016, instead running for a seat on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, a race he lost. Oldner was succeeded by Andrea Thompson.

The case should now return to Thompson, Paxton’s team said in its Wednesday filing, which was addressed to Mary Murphy, the presiding judge of the First Administrative Judicial Region of Texas.

I Am Not A Lawyer, so I can’t tell you how good an argument this was, but I can tell you that it didn’t work.

On Thursday morning, Paxton’s attorneys were told their latest request that Judge George Gallagher be forced to step down could not be honored. Why? The court they asked does not have the authority to make this decision.

“The undersigned does not have that power,” Judge Mary Murphy, presiding judge in the First Administrative Judicial Region, wrote in an email. The decision, she said, lies with “the trial court and the appellate courts.”

My take on this is that the administrative judge Murphy says Paxton should be taking this up with judges Gallagher (who has already expressed his opinion) and Thompson in the 416th Court in Collin County, where this whole thing originated. Assuming Judge Thompson has no interest in taking this case back to her court, then the next step for Paxton would be to ask the appellate court, which could be the Fourth Court (which has jurisdiction over Collin County) or one of the First and 14th Courts, which rule for Harris County. I’ll bet a dollar we’ll see that happen in short order.

Paxton’s day in appellate court

May 13th, 2016
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

The grand jury was out to get Ken Paxton, apparently.

Best mugshot ever

Best mugshot ever

Lawyers for Attorney General Ken Paxton on Thursday tried to cast doubt on the makeup of the grand jury that indicted him. They’re hoping to overturn a lower court’s decision not to dismiss the securities fraud charges against him.

Much of the discussion at the Dallas-based 5th Court of Appeals centered on the composition of the Collin County grand jury that indicted Paxton on state charges nearly a year ago, setting up a legal drama that led to federal charges earlier this year. Paxton has pleaded not guilty to the state charges, which allege he misled investors in a company in which he had personal dealings before he became the state’s top law enforcement official.

Paxton’s lawyers argued Thursday morning that the the appeals court should reverse last year’s decision by Collin County District Judge George Gallagher not to end the case against Paxton before trial. Paxton lawyer Bill Mateja told the 5th Court of Appeals that the grand jury that indicted Paxton was not sufficiently random, the result of a judge who allegedly gave prospective jurors too much leeway in removing themselves from the process.

“Quite simply, the court did not follow the rules,” Mateja said, later acknowledging that if the grand jury were voided, it would affect every case it heard, not just Paxton’s. “It is better to nip this in the bud now than allow this to fester.”

Special prosecutor Brian Wice countered that there was nothing improper about how the jury was put together, saying Collin County District Judge Chris Older, who oversaw that process, “had inherent discretion” and “acted in good faith.” Even if the jury’s composition was less than random, Wice said, Paxton’s lawyers have so far failed to show how it harmed them.

See here, here, and here for the background. Seems like a lot to ask the court for a ruling that would have the effect of potentially throwing out a bunch of other indictments, but what do I know? There was another question at issue as well.

The other point of contention was whether Paxton was properly registered as an investment adviser when he encouraged some of his own legal clients to seek the services of Frederick “Fritz” Mowery, a friend who operated an investment firm in the same building as Paxton’s law office. Paxton received a commission on these referrals.

Arguing against the third-degree felony charge, Mateja said Paxton was registered with the federal authorities because so was Frederick “Fritz” Mowery, the friend who operated the investment firm that Paxton recommended.

He added the federal investment definition for investment advisor representative “trumps the state’s definition.” He also called the state definition too broad, saying it could require people who distribute leaflets for investment firms or newspapers that advertise for them to register as a representative.

Wice disagreed, saying the state law is clear and that Paxton should have been registered with the the Texas State Securities Board.

Yes, that’s Ken Paxton’s lawyer arguing that federal law trumps state law. Because Ken Paxton has that much respect for the power of the federal government. How anyone managed to keep a straight face during this is a mystery to me.

Anyway. The courtroom proceedings were staid and boring compared to the political spectacle, which involved Paxton making a video whining about how terribly, terribly persecuted he’s being for this itty bitty financial peccadilloes. I mean, what’s a little fraud among friends, and I right? The Lone Star Project takes apart Paxton’s claims. I’m hoping the 5th Circuit judges do the same; both sides say they expect an expedited ruling, but that would still be months from now. Finally, it turns out that there’s yet another former employee of the AG’s office who is collecting salary for doing nothing. It’s a long story, so read it all; there’s a bit at the end about how this particular employee had oversight of a disastrous project to upgrade and outsource the management of child support enforcement systems. Maybe I’m reading too much into things, but that all smells fishy to me in a way that the others did not. Read it and see what you think. The Chron has more.

2016 primary reactions and initial impressions

Mar 3rd, 2016
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

First, a couple of minor notes. Rep. Byron Cook ultimately pulled out a win in his nasty and high-profile primary. That’s good news for Speaker Joe Straus and the general forces of “government that isn’t like a three-year-old coming off a sugar high”. Rep. Wayne Smith was forced into a runoff but did not lose outright. Also forced into a runoff was Rep. Doug Miller in HD73 – I missed that one on Tuesday night – and on the Democratic side, Rep. Ron Reynolds in HD27. That one apparently happened after midnight; Reynolds will face Angelique Bartholomew in May.

With all 7,963 now having reported, Democratic primary turnout statewide was 1,433,827, with over 800,000 votes coming on Election Day. To put that into some perspective, since the only point of reference any news story I’ve seen lately seems to be the off-the-charts year of 2008, here’s was turnout was for every Democratic primary through 1992, which is as far back as the SOS archives go:


Year      Turnout
=================
2016    1,433,827
2014      554,014
2012      590,164
2010      680,548
2008    2,874,986
2006      508,602
2004      839,231
2002    1,003,388
2000      786,890
1998      654,154
1996      921,256
1994    1,036,907
1992    1,483,047

In other words, 2016 will have had the second highest turnout in any Democratic primary since 1992. Yes, I know, there are a lot more voters now than there were in 1992, but still. That’s not too shabby. Republican turnout with all precincts in was 2,832,234, so while it’s obviously a record-breaker for them, it falls short of the Dem number from 2008. So there.

One thing to touch on here is that in both primaries, well more than half the vote came on Election Day, which as a result meant that the final turnout projections were low. Over 1.6 million Republicans voted on E-Day, so in both primaries about 43% of the vote was early, and 57% came on Election Day. You may recall that the early/E-Day split was similar in 2008, whereas in 2012 the early vote was about 52% of the total. The two lessons I would draw from this are 1) Final turnout projections are always a guess that should always be taken with a healthy serving of salt, and 2) The more hotly contested and high-profile a race is, the more likely that people will wait till the last minute to decide. Someone with more resources than I have should take a closer look at the makeup of the early and late voters to see what percentage of each are the hardcore and the casual voters; my guess, based on a completely unscientific survey of my Facebook friends, is that more hardcore voters than you might think waited till Tuesday. There’s an opportunity here for someone with an enterprising spirit and some number-crunching skillz.

Also on the matter of turnout, 226,825 Democrats and 329,014 Republicans cast ballots in Harris County. 61.4% of all Democratic votes and 59.1% of all Republican votes were cast on Tuesday. See my previous paragraph for what that means to me.

On the matter of the Republican primaries for Court of Criminal Appeals, here’s what Grits had to say during early voting:

Statewide, I’ll be watching the Sid Harle/Sid Smith race on the Court of Criminal Appeals to see if Texas GOP voters have flat-out lost their minds, and the Keel-Oldner-Wheless race to see if Judge Wheless’ strategy of ignoring the establishment and seeking Tea Party, pro-life and generally conservative movement support is enough to win a primary in a low spending, low-profile race.

Well, of the four candidates running in the primary for Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals Place 5, Steve Smith and Sid Harle came in third and fourth, respectively. A couple of guys named Scott Walker and Brent Webster will be in the runoff. As for Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals Place 2, Raymond Wheless came in second and will face Mary Lou Keel in the runoff, while Chris Oldner of Ken Paxton grand jury fame is on the outside looking in. I’ll leave it to Grits to tell me What It All Means.

There were a few races on the Dem side that had people shaking their heads or their fists, but there weren’t any truly bizarre results. For sure, there was nothing on the Dem side that compares to this:

The newly elected chair of the Republican Party in the county that includes the Texas Capitol spent most of election night tweeting about former Gov. Rick Perry’s sexual orientation and former President Bill Clinton’s penis, and insisting that members of the Bush family should be in jail.

He also found time to call Hillary Clinton an “angry bull dyke” and accuse his county vice chair of betraying the values of the Republican Party.

“The people have spoken,” Robert Morrow, who won the helm of the Travis County GOP with 54 percent of the vote, told The Texas Tribune. “My friends and neighbors and political supporters — they wanted Robert Morrow.”

Morrow’s election as Republican chair of the fifth-largest county in Texas left several members of the Travis County GOP, including vice chair Matt Mackowiak, apoplectic. Mackowiak, a Republican strategist, immediately announced over social media that he would do everything in his power to remove Morrow from office.

“We will explore every single option that exists, whether it be persuading him to resign, trying to force him to resign, constraining his power, removing his ability to spend money or resisting any attempt for him to access data or our social media account,” Mackowiak told the Tribune. “I’m treating this as a coup and as a hostile takeover.”

“Tell them they can go fuck themselves,” Morrow told the Tribune.

All righty then. Morrow, whose comedic stylings are collected here, was a regular inhabitant of the comment section at BurkaBlog, back when Paul Burka was still writing it. He was also Exhibit A for why one should never read the comments. I’d feel sorry for Travis County Republicans, but as the story notes Morrow is now Greg Abbott’s county party chair, and that’s just too hilarious for me to be empathetic about. Have fun with that, y’all, because there’s not much you can do to make him leave before his term expires. Trail Blazers has more.

I’ll start digging into the data tomorrow, when I hope all the precinct results will be in for the SOS website, and when I get a draft canvass from the Harris County Clerk. The Trib has a graphical view for the Presidential race if you can’t wait for me. Any other results or tidbits you want me to look at? Let me know. David Collins lists the races that will go to runoffs, and Harold Cook, Marc Campos, PDiddie, the Obserer, and the Current have more.

The most interesting statewide primary is for the Court of Criminal Appeals

Feb 2nd, 2016
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Too bad no one’s paying attention.

Judge Larry Meyers

Judge Larry Meyers

When the first Republican ever elected to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals decided in 2013 to switch parties after 20 years on the bench, the move made national news. Now as the only Democratic statewide official in Texas, Judge Larry Meyers is anticipating a losing battle.

“Oh, not real good,” the 68-year-old said this week, mulling his chances of retaining his seat. His smile-lined eyes unfocused for a second, before he laughed heartily, “Who knows? We might have some luck in the fall.”

Texas hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide office since 1994, but having an “R” after your name is not enough anymore here, where the tea party continues its five-year surge of influence. Even incumbents once considered dyed-in-the-wool conservatives are now routinely accused of being “Republicans in name only.”

Infighting among Texas’ Republicans has been less pronounced in the judicial races here, however, with candidates focusing more on performance than endorsements. Not so in this year’s fight for “place 2” on the state’s highest criminal court. Like every other race in Texas this primary season, it too has derailed into a battle over the candidates’ conservative bona fides, a fight that encompasses everyone from Attorney General Ken Paxton to the candidates’ spouses.

Meyers and the three Republicans vying to unseat him all acknowledge it’s just politics. But what they can’t agree on is whether it should be for this court, which, in the most real sense, decides who lives and who dies, who spends life in prison and who walks free.

[…]

While judicial campaigns are usually more staid, the vitriol has been flying between the Republicans vying to unseat Meyers. Three will face off in the March 1 primary.

Harris County District Court Judge Mary Lou Keel, a former assistant district attorney who has served on the court for 21 years, has little negative to say about her opponent Collin County District Judge Chris Oldner. Oldner, too, acknowledged, “I don’t have anything bad to say about Mary Lou Keel, I really don’t.”

Their target? Oldner’s colleague on the Collin County District Court, Ray Wheless.

The two north Texas judges sit on either side of the Ken Paxton prosecution. Wheless, a long-time friend and donor to the first-term current attorney general, has been critical of the grand jury process that led to Paxton’s indictment last July.

Oldner, meanwhile, presided over that grand jury. While he has said he has nothing against Paxton, Oldner said the attorney general’s supporters have actively worked to try to push him out of public service. He was accused by Paxton’s lawyers of mishandling the grand jury process – an allegation dismissed by the presiding judge – and now finds himself in a race with a colleague he considers part of the dangerous politicization of the bench.

“If you want somebody who just regurgitates tea party lines, well, then, Ray’s your man,” said Oldner, who was appointed to the district court by then-Gov. Rick Perry in 2003. “But if you want somebody that’s actually living the mantra of the rule of law, personal responsibility, then you look at Mary Lou Keel and myself.”

Keel, who said she has had multiple “run-ins” with Wheless on the campaign trail, simply said, “I find him deceptive and inaccurate.”

Wheless said he’s become the target of criticisms for an obvious reason: he’s the man to beat.

“There’s a reason that the conservatives in Texas are endorsing me,” he said, before listing off nods from Texas Right to Life, the Texas Eagle Forum and Liberty Institute’s Kelly Shackelford. “I am the recognized conservative in the race, and that is why Judge Oldner and Judge Keel can’t get any conservatives.”

Read the whole thing, it’s quite well done. It gives the first real insight I’ve seen as to why Justice Meyers changed parties; given that’s he’s filed a lawsuit against the voter ID law, I can believe that was a breaking point for him. I’m glad to have him on our side, and I wish more people would do the same, but I don’t really consider him a poster child for our cause. His rulings on the CCA are all over the map, too often on what I see as the wrong side of the issue in question. It’s not worth worrying about at this point, but it’s something to keep in mind.

As for the GOP side of things, it’s the same old story where the word “conservative” has lost all meaning in the endless tribal war, and qualifications don’t count. I haven’t been around long enough to say with any authority how all of this resembles the state of the Democratic Party in Texas in the 1970s, but I have to believe that there’s a crackup coming. A party can only exclude so many people for so long before they define themselves down to a minority. As far as that goes, what we need is more people like Larry Meyers to say “enough” and bail out. How long that will take, I have no idea. I may not live long enough to see it. But I believe it’s coming. In the meantime, read the story, and root for Raymond Wheless to lose.

This week on “As Collin County Turns”

Jan 24th, 2016
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

I swear, the Ken Paxton case is a giant vortex of political suck, absorbing everything in its wake.

Best mugshot ever

Best mugshot ever

The Collin County district judge who oversaw the grand jury indictment of state Attorney General Ken Paxton is now facing a complaint before the State Commission on Judicial Conduct.

Chris Oldner – whose comments about the politically charged case have drawn attention – was accused in a filing dated last week of judicial misconduct for “disparaging” Paxton, failing to recuse himself sooner, and potentially prejudicing the proceedings.

The campaign for Oldner, a Republican who is now running for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, said the “complaint is completely without merit.”

“It’s just another just another example of how dark-money special interest groups seek to bully and intimidate ethical, conservative judges who strictly follow the law,” the campaign said. “It has to be humiliating that they had to resort to a young, low-level political operative to do their bidding.”

The grievance was filed by Aaron Harris, a North Richland Hills politico who’s worked on anti-bond efforts and other Tarrant County campaigns. Empower Texans, a conservative group that supports Paxton, first posted Harris’ complaint on Wednesday.

Harris laughed off the Oldner campaign’s response, adding that “if I’m the boogieman, that’s great.”

“It’s very telling that he doesn’t address the merits of the complaint,” he said. “And I have no idea where he gets ‘dark money’ or anything like that. … I’m not sure how a concerned citizen is a special interest group.”

[…]

They asked Tarrant County District Judge George Gallagher, who’s now overseeing the case, to quash the indictments over issues with how Oldner selected the grand jury. They also accused Oldner of leaking information about the indictment to his wife.

Oldner has said previously that he didn’t do anything wrong. And while Gallagher did not address the claims against Oldner, he denied a motion last month which raised Oldner’s actions as a reson to throw out the indictments.

Harris’ complaint echoes the concerns outlined by Paxton’s legal team. He focused on an interview that Oldner gave to WFAA-TV (Channel 8) in which the judge accused Paxton’s defense team of having “reached a desperate place.”

“As citizens, we have to hold our elected officials – judges or not – accountable,” Harris said. “And Judge Oldner’s behavior in this case is troublesome.”

See here for the background. You have to admire Aaron Harris’ ability to keep a straight face while hilariously casting himself as just plain ol’ folk doing the good work of keeping an eye on government. I mean, I could hear him twirling his mustache from here. I have no idea whether Oldner – who I remind you is a candidate for Court of Criminal Appeals in the GOP primary – crossed any lines in that WFAA interview or not. The State Commission on Judicial Conduct will sort that out in a few months. But man, this whole Paxton case is a cancer. Who else will wind up going down with his ship?

Paxton remains under indictment

Dec 14th, 2015
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Sorry, Kenny.

Best mugshot ever

Best mugshot ever

A state district judge on Friday rejected Ken Paxton’s request to throw out his three felony indictments, likely sending the first-term attorney general to trial next year unless his lawyers appeal the ruling.

“Yes, all the motions we filed have been denied,” said Philip Hilder, one of Paxton’s attorneys, Friday. “We are extremely disappointed with the court’s ruling today as we believe that each of the motions was well founded. And we are currently reviewing options at this point, which may include appeal.”

[…]

Gallagher’s Friday ruling is a huge blow to the attorney general’s team of high-powered lawyers, who presented their arguments to the court at a daylong hearing in Collin County earlier this month. Sitting in a courtroom filled with Paxton supporters, Gallagher heard the team’s many motions to quash. Several of their arguments laid the blame at the feet of state district Judge Chris Oldner, whom they accused of improperly empaneling the grand jury, entering the grand jury room when he shouldn’t have and divulging news of the indictments to his wife when they were meant to remain secret. Paxton’s attorneys did not call Oldner to testify at the hearing, however, so he went to the media to tell his side of the story.

See here for some background, and here for Oldner’s side of the story. The Trib, which notes that Judge Gallagher did grant a couple of Team Paxton’s minor motions, has a copy of the ruling. I am certain they will appeal this. What does Paxton have to lose, other than more money down the legal rathole? Remember, you can string this all out for a very long time. I expect nothing less.

Judge Older, who is running for the CCA this cycle, raises an interesting point;

He said the defense’s claims against him are emblematic of a split that has formed among Collin County Republicans between those who think Paxton is guilty and those standing by his side.

“We’re seeing a huge rift. Now, the question could be, was it there all along and this is just exposing it, or is this causing it? I think it’s a little bit of both,” Oldner said. “I don’t know if it’s just a political hit job or there are motivations beyond that. I hear different things from different people.”

That sounds an awful lot like a political opportunity to me. I don’t know what the candidate filing situation looks like in Collin County, but it seems to me that one could do worse than to tie one’s opponent to Ken Paxton over there. May not get you much, but it can’t hurt and if nothing else it would be nice to have some empirical evidence about how far the needle can be moved via this route. 2018 isn’t that far off, after all. The Scoop Blog has more.

Judge from Paxton grand jury hearing has his say

Dec 9th, 2015
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

Time for more popcorn.

Best mugshot ever

Best mugshot ever

Once upon a time, Ken Paxton and Chris Oldner were political allies, dinner companions, and perhaps, even friends.

Not any more, though.

In legal filings and court hearings, Attorney General Ken Paxton’s legal team has taken a scorched earth approach to attacking Oldner, accusing the veteran Republican jurist of orchestrating a Machiavellian plot to get Paxton indicted by the grand jury that he oversaw.

“It’s a common tactic for criminal defendants; when they have reached a desperate place, they attack the process,” Judge Oldner said in an exclusive interview with News 8. “They attack prosecutors, they attack law enforcement, and they’ll even attack the judge.”

[…]

Last month, Oldner announced that rather than running for his current judicial post — a job he’s held for more than a decade — he was going to run for the Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest criminal appeals court.

“Right now, we are facing an unprecedented time,” Oldner said. “The system and the integrity of the system is being attacked, and I think it’s important for strong, good, ethical judges to stand up and push back against the special interest.”

Oldner talks of “dark money agenda groups who use massive email lists and web sites to push an agenda.”

“When you face bullies, you have to stand up and push back,” he said.

See here, here, and here for the relevant background. There’s not a whole lot to learn in the story that we didn’t already know from the court filings and reports about them, but this was another amusing side note in the ongoing Paxton saga, and it might provoke someone on Team Paxton to say something indiscreet. Plus, as noted here, Judge Oldner will be a candidate for the Court of Criminal Appeals next year, and you can be sure this will come up in the primary. How will the seething masses of the GOP base react to Ken Paxton being used as a prop in an attack ad, one way or the other? We may find out.

Paxton’s first day in court

Dec 2nd, 2015
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

And they’re off!

Best mugshot ever

Best mugshot ever

Clashing at a pretrial hearing Tuesday, lawyers for Attorney General Ken Paxton dismissed the criminal case against him as the result of a “rogue prosecution,” while prosecutors accused Paxton of relying on “nonsense” arguments and a string of legal technicalities to challenge the charges of securities law violations.

State District Judge George Gallagher allowed the frequently pointed give and take during a 5½-hour hearing that could determine whether Paxton goes to trial next year on charges linked to private business deals he brokered before becoming attorney general in January.

Gallagher, however, declined to issue any rulings on defense lawyers’ multiple requests to dismiss three felony charges against Paxton, saying he will issue written orders at an unspecified future date.

The judge also left one matter pending — a request from prosecutors to amend all three indictments.

Defense lawyer Phillip Hilder called it an improper do-over that acknowledged the weakness of the case against Paxton. Prosecutor Brian Wice said such changes are common, allowed by law and designed to give Paxton’s lawyers what they asked for — more information about the charges against him.

Defense lawyers have 10 days to file a response, and Gallagher said another hearing on the issue was possible.

An earlier Statesman story recapped what the sides were arguing about.

The pretrial hearing, which Paxton will attend, will focus on 10 defense filings arguing that the charges must be dismissed because, among other things:

  • The State Securities Board, which has primary jurisdiction over security crimes, did not refer the Paxton matter for prosecution.
  • The failure-to-register charge violated the statute of limitations and subjected Paxton to double jeopardy because the securities board had already reprimanded him for the infraction.
  • The failure-to-register law is unconstitutional because it is vague and cannot give fair notice about what acts are illegal.

But the biggest point of contention focused on defense accusations that the original judge in charge of the Paxton case engaged in “purposeful and cumulative efforts to subvert the grand jury process, all to Paxton’s detriment,” a Paxton motion said, adding that tossing out all three indictments “is the only appropriate remedy for this conduct.”

Before recusing himself from the case in July, state District Judge Chris Oldner improperly formed the grand jury that handled Paxton’s case by asking potential jurors to raise their hands if they were willing to serve, then choosing only from that pool, the defense argued.

In addition, defense lawyers accused Oldner — who, like Paxton, is a Republican — of improperly divulging secret grand jury details, including telling his wife about Paxton’s indictments one week before they were made public. Oldner also broke several rules in handling Paxton’s case and ordered the identity of grand jurors to remain secret, which is “contrary to Texas law” and hindered Paxton’s ability to challenge the makeup of the jury, a motion said.

Prosecutors Kent Schaffer, Nicole DeBorde and Wice defended Oldner’s handling of the case, arguing that nothing improper occurred and that Oldner’s actions did not entitle Paxton to avoid facing serious criminal charges.

Paxton’s rights as a defendant, prosecutors argued, also did not entitle him “to recklessly and cruelly injure Judge Oldner, who now must bear a scar needlessly inflicted by Paxton’s unsupported, unsupportable and unwarranted accusation that formed the centerpiece of his reed-thin motion to quash these lawfully obtained indictments.”

According to the DMN Crime Blog, Judge Oldner will be a candidate for the Court of Criminal Appeals in 2016. I’ll bet this will add a little spice to that campaign, especially if he has a primary opponent.

There’s one other point of contention in all this:

“We had objected, as you’ll recall, after the arraignment to the use of cameras in the courtroom, and we continue to object,” Bill Mateja, one of Paxton’s attorneys, told the Chronicle on Monday. “Our understanding is that Collin County local rules are that cameras are not allowed in the courtroom. There is an exception with the parties’ consent, and we have not consented.”

When asked if he expected the issue to impact Tuesday’s hearing, Mateja answered, “I don’t know. Truthfully, I have not heard anything.”

When asked what the Paxton team would do if they entered the courtroom Tuesday and a camera was present, Mateja added, “I’m not going to comment any further. We’ll take that up if that situation arises.”

I’m not sure where that stands. I presume we’ll know more after the matter of the refiled indictments, or should I say the re-refiled indictments, is settled. The Chron and WFAA have more.