Good, but we’ll see how long it lasts.
Still a crook any way you look
A Travis County Judge temporarily blocked the enforcement of a new rule requiring prosecutors in counties with 400,000 or more residents to turn over data on active and closed criminal cases to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Paxton announced on March 31 that he would adopt a new rule requiring district and county attorneys to provide specific performance reports, and access to detailed report information upon request, according to a release by the attorney general.
Paxton said the rule is meant to “assist citizens in determining whether their local elected officials are inadequately prosecuting certain categories of crime, releasing dangerous criminals back into the community, engaging in selective prosecution, or otherwise failing to uphold their obligations.”
However, Harris County Attorney Christian D. Menefee called the ruling for the policy that took effect in April “nothing more than a power grab for the attorney.”
“Paxton is trying to intimidate locally elected prosecutors and use his office to score political points,” Menefee said in a written statement.
The ruling from the Travis County judge comes after a lawsuit filed by Menefee on behalf of Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare, alongside several other Texas counties and district attorneys.
“We’re not going to let that happen in Harris County,” Menefee said.
See here for the background. There were two separate lawsuits, one filed by Dallas, Harris, and Bexar, and the other by El Paso and Travis. Not clear to me if this TRO applies to one or both; it may also be that the suits have been combined. The AG’s order would have taken effect on July 1 had this order not been issued. That is stayed pending the outcome of the lawsuit(s), modulo any appellate activity. Paxton normally contests rulings like these, so we’ll see where this goes from here.