Best mugshot ever
A district judge ruled Friday to grant information related to the selection of Collin County grand juries to Attorney General Ken Paxton’s defense team.
The ruling by District Judge George Galllagher came over objections by special prosecutors in the case, who filed a motion to quash the subpoenas seeking the information, saying the request was improper and not relevant.
His order notes that the ruling came after a conference call Thursday where both sides agreed to cancel a hearing scheduled for Friday and to release the information to the defense.
[…]
“This is a victory, pure and simple,” defense attorney Bill Mateja said in a written statement Friday. “Not only is it a victory for General Paxton, it is a victory for transparency in the grand jury process. Despite the Special Prosecutors describing our request as desperate, the Court easily saw through that hyperbole. The Court’s ruling demonstrates that these subpoenas were justified and proper. We have every right to consider the circumstances in which the grand jury was picked in this case.”
Special prosecutor Brian Wice responded to Mateja’s comment with a written statement of his own.
“Had Mr. Paxton’s defense team followed the rules regarding pre-trial discovery in criminal cases, we would not have been compelled to file our motion to quash his subpoenas,” he wrote. “But we congratulate Mr. Paxton’s defense team on their self-styled “victory for transparency in the grand jury process” and welcome the release of information revealing that absolutely nothing improper occurred in the selection and empanelment of any of the four Collin County grand juries they sought to challenge. Perhaps now we can move on to the real issues in this case.”
See here and here for the background. I have no idea what difference if any this will make, but I suppose if one’s defense is based on the theory that the grand jury was out to get Ken Paxton for some reason, it would help to have all available information about said grand jury. Settle in and get comfortable, this is going to take awhile.