Best mugshot ever
Texas’ highest court for criminal cases on Wednesday struck down a law that allows the attorney general to unilaterally prosecute election cases.
The state’s Court of Criminal Appeals issued an 8-1 opinion saying a provision of the law violates the separation of powers clause in the Texas Constitution, representing an intrusion by the executive branch into the judicial branch. The attorney general can only get involved in a case when asked to by a district or county attorney, the court said.
Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican who has been aggressive in trying to root out voter fraud, bashed the opinion from the all-GOP court. He said in a tweet that the ruling “could be devastating for future elections in Texas.”
At stake was a part of the election code that says the attorney general, the state’s top law enforcement officer, “may prosecute a criminal offense prescribed by the election laws of this state.”
The provision was thrown into jeopardy by a long-winding case involving Jefferson County Sheriff Zena Stephens. After the county district attorney declined to prosecute Stephens over campaign-finance allegations stemming from the 2016 election, Paxton’s office stepped in and obtained an indictment from a grand jury in neighboring Chambers County.
In its opinion, the Court of Criminal Appeals overturned a lower-court ruling that said the election code provision “clearly and unambiguously gives the Attorney General power to prosecute criminal laws prescribed by election laws generally whether those laws are inside or outside the Code.”
Rather, the Court of Criminal Appeals said, “the Attorney General can prosecute with the permission of the local prosecutor but cannot initiate prosecution unilaterally.”
I don’t have any posts about this, but from reading the opinion, Sheriff Stephens, who was elected in 2016, was charged with making false claims on her finance report, specifically claiming that some $5,000 contributions were actually under $50. I don’t know what her explanation was, or why the JeffCo DA declined to prosecute. The rest of the opinion is pretty dense and technical, but the summary of what is at stake is quite simple. Here’s the opening paragraph from the opinion:
Zena Collins Stephens appeals both the court of appeals’ denial of a pretrial writ of habeas corpus and its reversal of the district court’s decision to quash Count I of the indictment. She presents the following question: May the Texas Legislature delegate to the Attorney General, a member of the executive department, the prosecution of election-law violations in district and inferior courts? No. Because Texas Election Code section 273.021 delegates to the Attorney General a power more properly assigned to the judicial department, we conclude that the statute is unconstitutional. Therefore, we reverse the decision of the court of appeals and remand the case to the trial court to dismiss the indictment.
And here’s the section of the law in question, which is now null and void. Interestingly, that law passed originally in 1985, and was last modified in 1997. Either no AG had ever tried this before, or there are some people that have been prosecuted and maybe convicted under this statute that deserve some relief.
Anyway. I for one will sleep better tonight knowing that Ken Paxton does not have unfettered discretion to bring vote “fraud” charges against anyone he feels like. (I’m also old enough to remember when the main function of the AG’s office was civil enforcement and collecting child support. My aunt worked in that office in the 80s and 90s, and that was what her department did.) I’ll give the last word to these gentlemen:
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Said another way:
The *Republican* Texas Court of Criminal Appeals decided the Texas Attorney General can’t unilaterally use phony prosecutions of “voter fraud” as a campaign prop. The issue is separation of powers #txlege— Scott Braddock (@scottbraddock) 1:51 PM – 15 December 2021
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Said another way:
NEW: it’s now the law that the TX AG *cannot* unilaterally prosecute folks for violating election laws. It’s up to local prosecutors.This is a big win for local government and Texans who are tired of state officials exaggerating voter fraud claims to undermine elections.
— Christian D. Menefee (@CDMenefee) 12:54 PM – 15 December 2021
I’ll take my wins where I can get them.
Voters must have also thought this was frivolous. Stephens, a democrat, was re-elected in 2020 by a comfortable margin in a county that voted for Trump !
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