Comments on: Judge blasts prosecutor misconduct in New Orleans police abuse case

By: TexJudge

TexJudge — Sat, 21 Sep 2013 15:52:00 +0000

While I in no way condone the online comments about the case made by members of the US Attorney’s office, there appears to be little or no evidence that the comments had any influence on any of the jurors, or that any of the jurors even knew about them, so that the rights of the defendants to a fair and impartial jury were negatively impacted. Throwing out the convictions therefore, in my opinion, was an overreaction and an abuse of discretion on the part of the judge. The more proper remedy would have been to refer the matter to the state bar for attorney misconduct.

By: wfjag

wfjag — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 15:47:53 +0000

Along similar lines, the conviction of former House Speaker Tom Delay was reversed:

TEXAS COURT OF APPEALS, THIRD DISTRICT, AT AUSTIN
NO. 03-11-00087-CR
Thomas Dale DeLay, Appellant
v.
The State of Texas, Appellee

The last sentence reads:

“Because we conclude that the evidence was legally insufficient to support DeLay’s convictions, we reverse the judgments of the trial court and render judgments of acquittal.”

Opinion at: http://images.bimedia.net/documents/tom-delay-appeal-doc-12D.pdf

As if anyone ever thought that the prosecution of Delay was anything other than a partisan hatched job.

By: Walter Olson

Walter Olson — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 18:22:58 +0000

Added a warning.

By: CTrees

CTrees — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 17:29:29 +0000

That New Orleans Times Picayunne link auto-downloading a PDF is… rather annoying, especially when browsing from a phone.