The special prosecutors in the Paxton case respond forcefully to his legal team’s grand jury-related subpoenas.
Best mugshot ever
Special prosecutors in Ken Paxton’s felony securities fraud case are seeking to quash subpoenas his lawyers filed last week seeking information about the grand jury selection process.
Paxton’s legal team last Thursday subpoenaed four Collin County court reporters for information related to the selection and empanelment of the grand jury that indicted the first-term attorney general in July. A fifth subpoena requests information on “a personnel action regarding a deputy clerk” from a human resources employee.
The prosecutors on Tuesday asked presiding Judge George Gallagher of Tarrant County to shoot down the subpoenas.
“Paxton’s applications are an improper, indeed, desperate attempt at obtaining pre-trial discovery, fall far short of meeting the standard of materiality and relevance required by controlling legal authority and constitute an unsupported and unsupportable attempt to conduct the very type of fishing expedition anathema to the criminal justice system,” their motion states.
The motion to quash says Paxton’s attorneys improperly used the subpoenas as weapons for discovery and did not demonstrate that the information sought would be material to his case.
“Absent a claim that members of a identifiable minority group were purposefully excluded from serving on the grand jury, nothing about the random selection and empanelment of this grand jury could ever come close to meeting the threshold mandate of materiality,” the motion states.
See here for the background. The stenographers also filed motions, having to do with the cost of providing full transcripts (they get paid by the word) and what if any of the testimony should be excluded. I can’t tell which side is more likely to be blowing smoke here, but we ought to find out quickly one way or the other.
The hearing is scheduled for Oct. 16 at 1:00 p.m. in the Tarrant County courtroom of Judge George Gallagher. The judge that day could decide whether to quash the subpoenas, or enforce them, which would require court employees to hand over transcripts, audio recordings and other information related to the grand jury selection and empanelment process.
Paxton attorney Bill Mateja said he expects Gallagher will make a decision that day.
“We’re hopeful that he will allow the subpoenas to stand and not quash them,” Mateja told the Chronicle on Thursday. “This is a very common request for the grand jury transcripts.”
Mateja said he does not expect the proceedings to last very long, and has not discussed with Paxton whether he will attend: “It’s fairly routine on very preliminary matters that the clients don’t show.”
Like I said, clearly one side or the other is going to be very disappointed. We’ll know soon enough. Trail Blazers, which has a copy of the prosecution’s motion, has more.