From Texas Lawyer.
Best mugshot ever
As courtroom twists go, this one is practically unheard-of: On the brink of bringing Texas’ attorney general, Ken Paxton, to trial on felony securities fraud charges, the government’s prosecutors are threatening to bail out of the case unless they get paid.
Whether one of the biggest criminal cases in Texas finally goes before a jury is now in limbo over what prosecutors contend is a deliberate effort by rich supporters of Paxton, an up-and-coming firebrand in Republican legal circles, to delay justice by challenging their paychecks. So far, the tactic is working.
[…]
Supporters of Paxton have made an issue of the $300-an-hour fees being charged by the special prosecutors, who are paid by the Dallas suburban county where the trial will be held. A three-judge panel of a Dallas appeals court agreed to halt payments on the $200,000 in legal bills while it considers a lawsuit filed by Jeff Blackard, a wealthy Dallas developer and onetime Paxton political donor, who has argued that the fees were excessive and costing taxpayers too much.
“Everyone in the courtroom is being paid except for us,” one of the appointed prosecutors, Brian Wice, has said. “No one expected us to work for free.”
Firing back, Paxton’s attorneys earlier this month accused prosecutors of being “financially self-serving” and argued they don’t have a right to be paid until the case is over. As of last year, Paxton had raised more than $300,000 from private sources to pay his own high-powered defense team.
Legal observers say they’ve never seen a case jeopardized quite like this.
“It’s outrageous that the prosecution should be derailed by the defendant somehow, or the defendant’s supporters or friends, defunding the prosecution,” said Joe Turner, a veteran Austin attorney who helped Willie Nelson and Matthew McConaughey beat drug busts years ago.
[…]
Blackard’s attorney denies that the lawsuit is a ploy to keep Paxton from facing a jury.
“It’s not about whether Paxton is or is not prosecuted. It’s about whether the taxpayers’ money is spent properly,” said attorney Eddie Greim, who is based in Kansas City, Missouri.
Prosecutors told a judge in court documents that Blackard “has already succeeded in shutting down this prosecution” and warned that having to appoint replacements will only drag the case out further.
Most of this, which was written before the decision by Judge Gallagher that delayed the trial until the prosecutor pay dispute gets resolved, is stuff we know. As a matter of law, the suit may have merit, but as a matter of common sense it’s completely ridiculous. It simply cannot be the case that a private citizen can derail a prosecution like this. I maintain that the funding for cases like these should be the state’s responsibility. Indeed, it was the state’s responsibility until the 2011 Legislature kneecapped the Public Integrity Unit of the Travis County DA’s office. Whatever you think of that action, it created a problem for which there is no current solution. It won’t affect this case, but the Lege really should address this. Ken Paxton will not be the last elected official to cause this issue for a county Commissioners Court.