Hey thanks. I’m sure Earle will not need luck, and most people will not have a problem understanding that if you conspire with others to break a law, that’s a bad thing. Kind of like someone who conspires to commit murder or rob a bank isn’t innocent even if they don’t pull the trigger or go in the bank. You tool.
You think Zacarias Moussaoui should’ve gotten off scot-free, huh? After all, the only things the government ended up tagging him for were:
Conspiracy to Commit Acts of Terrorism Transcending National Boundaries,
Conspiracy to Commit Aircraft Piracy,
Conspiracy to Destroy Aircraft,
Conspiracy to Use Weapons of Mass Destruction,
Conspiracy to Murder United States Employees, and
Conspiracy to Destroy Property
Geeze, what’s the big deal? It’s not like he actually commited acts of terrorism, aircraft piracy, destroy aircraft, use weapons of mass destruction, murder U.S. employees, or destroy property.
(Before some smartass accuses me of comparing Delay to a terrorist or murderer: no, of course these are way more serious than money laundering, DUH. My point is that conspiracy to commit ___ is a crime, not just committing ____.)
:: steps back to see if it will take ::
Might as well go on with your life - it won’t take. At best, stephe96 will drop this line of questioning with no further ado, and immediately take up a new line which is both completely unrelated to this line and has no more grounding in fact than this line. And contains as many words and phrases that connote negatively as the internet can provide. That’s pretty much been his/her/its MO.
I don’t know, DeLay has evidently hired Dick DeGuerin. Same guy who represented Kay Bailey Hutchinson, as well as David Koresch. He is Kinky Friedman’s Campaign Advisor. Not a GOP yes man by a long shot, yet not too fond of Ronnie Earle. One of the top hired guns in Texas, law professor at UTA. Seems fairly confident he won’t lose this one.
And by the way, anyone really interested should take a look at the GD thread. Bricker’s analysis in that thread is far more potent a defense than Stephe96’s sputtering in this thread.
Oh, I didn’t mean to imply that the trial will be a slam dunk. DeLay is not without means to mount a vociferous defense by any stretch. I simply meant that Stephe’s hand-waving “Conspiracy? I don’t get it.” defense will not require any luck on Earle’s part to deal with.
You’re right, but I wasn’t trying to “defend” anyone. I was simply asking questions. I guess Bricker is a lawyer? Anyway, my questions were answered in his/her posts, and as I suspected trying to prove a conspiracy charge by itself would appear to be a difficult thing to do.
I predict this thing will never make it to trial, based on Earle’s suspect past. As soon as Hutchinson, for example, asked for a jury trial Earle moved to drop the charges, to no avail. Delay is doing the smart thing by confronting this charge, and Earle, head on.
I’m wondering if a statute of limitations ran out on the more serious crime, and all they could tag him with is the cover up.
Yeah, hopefully he’ll have as much luck as the prosecutor who charged Martha Stewart with conspiracy, but not actual insider trading.
Difficult, perhaps, but not impossible. See Martha Stewart.
It never ceases to amaze me how people post such clangers when the facts are so easy to look up.
Earle moved to drop the charges because the judge refused to rule on whether he would accept incriminating tapes into evidence. When he refused to make the ruling, Earle dropped the charges in order to gather more evidence and start later in front of a judge who might rule pretrial. Then the judge swore in a jury and instructed them to acquit Hutchinson.
Pointless partisan cunt, indeed.
The difference between the cases is that there was extrinsic evidence to shore up the prosecution’s version: Ms. Stewart did, in fact, sell her shares of ImClone. So the jury could infer from that event her participation in an agreement to user insider knowledge.
Here (so far) there is no similar piece of evidence.
As I mentioned in the GD thread, this is not legally fatal. The jury could convict Delay based only on the testimony of the other accused conspirators. But if that’s the only thing the jury has to go on, the defense will suggest that the other conspirators’ testimony was motivated by the deals offered to them by the prosecution, and that the prosecution is politically motivated. With absolutely no evidence of Delay’s participation other than the accusations of the other conspirators, it would probably be an easy story to sell.
This is from a post on DemocraticUnderground, but what the hell, this is the Pit:
That story doesn’t make much sense. Are you sure there isn’t a nuance you’re missing?
Admission of evidence is a matter that is left to the discretion of the judge. It’s not at all unusual for a judge to refuse to rule on an issue of evidence pre-trial, because the admissibility of evidence may change based on the foundations laid at trial, and the evidentiary doors opened during testimony.
On the other hand, the judge cannot force the state to procede with a prosecution. The judge cannot, * sua sponte*, swear in a jury and open a trial without the prosecution’s consent. If the prosecution wishes to drop the charges, they can.
It’s true that jeopardy attaches in a jury trial when the jury is sworn. Once that point is past, the prosecution’s request to drop the charges will result in a mistrial, not a verdict of acquittal. Double jeopardy may, or may not, bar a retrial, depending on the reasons for the mistrial.
If the judge orders the jury to reach a verdict of actiuttal, the prosecution may appeal.
For all these reasons, your account of the events seems unlikely. Do you have a cite, by chance?
Hi, Stephe. Long time no see, and I’d forgotten what a willfully ignorant little turd you were. Actually, I’d forgotten that you existed.
Probably a waste of my time, but I wanted to point out to you that lots of people are sent to prison on conspiracy convictions. Charlie Manson, for instance.
My guess, if I had to put money down, is that Delay will crack and start ratting out his buddies in an attempt to keep out of prison. (Maybe it’s just wishful thinking.)
I can think of plenty of other reasons to waive an SOL claim on the indictment. Chief among them are political: the prosecutor could have told him, “Look, I’ll indict you two weeks before the election, even though I’m not ready to proceed to trial just yet. Or you can give me more time, and I’ll hold off on the indictment until after the election.”
The miasma has been hanging over DeLay for years, and this move has long been expected, especially by him. Politically it doesn’t make any difference.
But you can keep hoping this will just go away all you want, if it comforts you.
You’re right. Earle has been shopping this charge around to grand jury after grand jury for years until he finally got one to bite. How many grand juries was it? Four? Five?
Charles Manson may have been convicted for conspiracy, but he was definitely convicted on seven counts of first degree murder.
Your skepticism is appreciated, Bricker. I did a fair amount of digging and found scarcely any content. One useful article is located here. It presents a different picture than the tendentious one I paraphrased from, of all places, famoustexans.com.
It sounds to me like he was just a deer caught in the headlights. Do you think this is reasonable?
The case appears to have been tossed out. No jury ever handed down a verdict.