A Houston trial lawyer's take on the Delay indictment

A old friend who is a longtime Houston trial lawyer (and iconoclastic progressive) had the following comments in response to my request for a quick legal analysis of the Delay indictment (God, it feels so good to type those words!). [lightly edited for clarity]

From SR (name redacted due to the vengeful nature of DeLay and his myrmidons), a Houston trial lawyer who often has to appear before the Big-Business biased, tort-reformer Repub judges and nutcase Christian evangelists who currently comprise the vast majority of the Harris County state court judiciary.

Key legal points I would make:

• Conspiracy charges tend to be a bit easier to prove than some other crimcharges. Its useful to remember here that the Federal criminal conspiracy laws mostly originated in the Omnibus Crime Control Act of 1968, to make it easier to jail war protesters and leftists without having to prove anything much more than that they exercised their freedom of association.

  But over the years thoughtful courts have tightened it down to require more: now we need stuff like criminal knowledge, intent, overt acts in furtherance -- anything to show that the accused is guilty of something more than unwise  association. (read about the 'moonshine case' in the HouChron link for a good point about conspiracy law)

• But Ronnie, bless his prosecutorial heart, will still need a smoking gun to cinch this case down for a jury. And he'll get one - probably many! I remember how when Nixon went down, all you saw was Repub asses leaping for cover every which way. And when the heat got turned on the underlings, they rushed to testify in order to cover their own sorry criminal asses: John Dean, Haldeman, the low-level Watergate-breakin thugs themselves. Only a fascist, rat-eating maniac like Liddy would hold out under such circumstances. There's indeed no honor among thieves, especially Republican thieves. If these types wouldn't protect a sitting President, do you think they'll go to jail alone to protect a cockroach in human form like DeLay? No way. The only question I have now is: who are they?

  You can bet your ass that Ronnie is going to shield their identities as much as he can until the trial - to prevent the continuing corruption dungpile that is the DeLay machine from bribing or threatening them and, incidentally, further obstructing justice.

• DeLay's attorney is Houston's Dick DeGuerin. Guess even the notorious Austin backroom powerbroker and political celebrity defense attorney Roy Minton wouldn't take DeLay's case. [DeGuerin is good ... very good.  Earle had best have all his ducks standing in precise lines at quivering attention in the courtroom]
• This may indeed herald the downfall of the filthy-money-fuelled NeoCon era at both the Texas and national levels - just check out Abrahamoff, Rove's treason, and all the other scandals brewing. Again I think of Nixon here. The trouble with these Republicans is that they are all criminals at the core who just can't resist crime and corruption whenever they get any power. Nixon would have finished his term if he hadn't been tempted to bug the Democrats' offices. And even W might be at least politically viable to finish his term, if he could just resist corruptly enriching Halliburton, appointing incompetent cronyist idiots to key positions as out-and-out patronage, starting illegal wars for oil, sucking off the Saudis for more money even when they blatantly fund terrorism, etc., etc., ETC! Lincoln was right, you can indeed fool most of the people most of the time, but even the redneck Red State morons have a limit. Not even they can ignore ALL of this - not at a time when gas is so expensive.
• White House spokesman, -- that faceless, colorless flack Scott somebody -- yesterday defended the Repub neocon agenda, saying that "the Republican rule has bettered the lives of all Americans." Oh yeah? Could you support that statement with facts, please?

  Our sons and daughters are dying in Iraq for Big Oil, Halliburton has fraudulently siphoned billions in taxes and developed a huge, uncontrollable, not-accountable-to-anyone private mercenary army. The Federal deficit is outrageous enough to ensure that our children will be serfs to the foreign lenders we now have to borrow from every day to finance Bush's wars and tax cuts for the wealthy. Bush inherited a budget surplus from Clinton's administration, which he promptly gave away to Big Business, Big Oil, and the 20,000 richest families in America - while shafting the poor, the elderly, our schoolchildren, and ordinary Americans right and left. I won't even try to describe the ongoing Bush-caused fiasco of corruption and disaster that is New Orleans "FEMA hurricane relief".

  The only betterment my life will have during his administration is the chance to watch TV as all of his corrupt and criminal cronies take the hot-seat stand in Court and before Congressional committees, or get to sit in the special chair reserved for them at the defense table. Watch as the neocon rats compete to testify against each other - they're nothing if not cynical opportunists. Neoconservatism is really not at all a coherent political ideology: it's much better known by its real name: opportunistic corruption for money and power.

• Let's take a leaf from the Republican playbook here: It has so far clearly been "NO OIL CO. OR CORRUPT POLITICIAN LEFT BEHIND" Let's be SURE to add: " - OR LEFT UNINDICTED!"

Stay tuned for the exciting, pulse-pounding Chapter II: The Continuing Roundup of the Unindicted Co-Conspirators. The neocon reign of terror [could be] OVER!