It’s almost time for Tom DeLay to go to court again.
Who are YOU to judge me?
A government-watchdog group on Tuesday petitioned the state’s highest criminal court to reinstate the money-laundering and conspiracy convictions of former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom Delay, moving to join a brewing legal fight before a scheduled June 18 court hearing in the case.
DeLay, a former Sugar Land Republican, was convicted in November 2010 by a Travis County jury of raising almost $700,000 in corporate contributions through Texans for a Republican Majority, a political action committee, and using those funds to help Republicans win a majority in the Texas House in 2003.
Corporate contributions to Texas politicans have been barred since 1903, and prosecutors alleged that DeLay directed a criminal conspiracy to illegally launder corporate funds into Texas House races, an argument that watchdog group Texans for Public Justice said is correct and should result in reinstatement of DeLay’s conviction. The group filed an amicus brief Tuesday with the state Court of Criminal Appeals.
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Calling the dismissal of DeLay’s conviction a “partisan, result-oriented ruling” by the appeals court, Craig McDonald, executive director of the watchdog group. “Facts show that DeLay and his co-conspirators knowingly broke Texas election laws.”
The amicus brief is here, and TPJ’s press release is here. It should be noted that DeLay’s legal team succeeded in getting one of the Democratic judges removed from the panel; the remaining Democratic judge dissented on the opinion to overturn DeLay’s convictions. As I’ve noted before, it will be interesting to see if the CCA’s notoriously pro-prosecution biases overwhelm any partisan sympathy they may have for DeLay. I will also note that it was eleven months between arguments before the Third Court of Appeals and their ruling, so I wouldn’t expect a final decision any time soon.