Paxton invokes the “but I’m an orphan!” defense

This fucking guy, I swear.

A crook any way you look

Attorney General Ken Paxton’s legal team is asking a Harris County district judge to dismiss his securities fraud charges, claiming his right to a speedy trial has been violated in the case that has gone on for more than eight years.

His team filed a motion to dismiss Paxton’s indictments on Tuesday, which was the deadline for pretrial motions. Paxton is facing two felony indictments that allege he broke state securities regulations and failed to disclose stock transactions to the state. That case has been delayed since 2015. The trial is currently set for April 15.

In the filing, Paxton’s lawyers argued the delay has been “excessive.”

[…]

Paxton’s security fraud case was originally set in Collin County, where Paxton lives, but in 2017 prosecutors began a fight to change the venue to Harris County. They argued that finding potential impartial jurors and getting a fair trial would not be possible in the area that Paxton had represented politically for 12 years. Before becoming attorney general, he was a state representative for 10 years and a state senator for two years.

The fight over a change in venue went on for years. Paxton’s team successfully got the case back to Collin County in 2020 after arguing the judge who had sent the case to Harris County no longer had jurisdiction in Paxton’s case. Prosecutors appealed and ultimately got the case back to Harris County after the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals ruled in their favor last July.

The battle over which county his case would be heard in was only one factor of several that caused years of delays. Issues with six-figure payments for the prosecutors in the case lengthened the time of the appeal, and additionally, defense lawyers for Paxton took issue with the grand jury procedure in his indictment and had asked to get the charges dismissed altogether.

“The length of the delay was excessive and weighs heavily against the State and in favor of Paxton,” the attorney general’s lawyers wrote in the court filings. “Most of the delays were due to the State seeking to transfer the case from Collin County, opposing moving it back to Collin County, and more than any other cause, the pro tems seeking attorney’s fees. None of these
events or causes were Paxton’s fault.”

I’m sorry, but there’s only one appropriate response to this.

I’m sure the prosecutors will clean it up and add some legal stuff when they file their response. Given the aptitude for snark that we’ve seen from Brian Wice in the past, I suspect my sentiment will be lurking in there. There will be a hearing for the pre-trial motions, including this one, next Friday the 16th. Houston Public Media and Texas Monthly, which provided a nice summary of this case’s interminable history so I didn’t have to, have more.

Related Posts:

• The Paxton prosecutors’ personal dispute
• More on the Paxton deal
• Paxton gets his deal